For easier reading, those of us who have vision difficulties.

It is pretty much official: Europe has unilaterally decided to basically declare economic warfare with their chief energy supplier, Russia. The unelected British Prime Minister admitted the Georgian attacks were so Europe could circumvent Russia with the new oil pipeline that would go to Turkey. Meanwhile, Europe continues to refuse Turkey entry in the European Union. Pure ethnic issues at work here. Nothing was learned from the harsh lessons of WWII. So, we get to hear Putin discuss history and world power politics. He is a most amazing man. Has double the brain power of our crazed emperors.

Gordon Brown warns today that the West will not be held to ransom by Russia, threatening a 'root and branch' review of relations with the Kremlin and urgently moving to stop Britain's reliance on Russian oil and gas.

His defiant words in an article in today's Observer, following a 'frank' conversation with the Russian president yesterday, will heighten tensions ahead of tomorrow's meeting of European heads of state called to discuss the crisis in Georgia. The Prime Minister's intervention reflects fears that the territorial conflict over South Ossetia risks spilling into an energy war, with Russia using its vast supplies of oil and gas - on which many European countries depend - to blackmail the West into submission.

'No nation can be allowed to exert an energy stranglehold over Europe,' says Brown. He promises urgent action to prevent Britain 'sleepwalking into an energy dependence on less stable or reliable partners', including seeking out alternative suppliers of gas and oil, as well as pushing ahead with plans for new nuclear plants and alternative fuels.

HAHAHA. The toothless old imperialist lion bellows and roars. But it can't even get to its feet. Lying on the ground, it growls and groans at the Russian bear. The bear can barely suppress its own mirth. Right on the heels of the North Sea energy systems collapsing rapidly, NOW England is going elsewhere for fuel?

Iraq! That's the ticket. Except bankrupt England can't outbid the wealthy Chinese communists. They are buying up the systems in Iraq. Iraq was forced to sell some of its oil reserves to American, European and British invader's oil consortiums. All of which are far, far, FAR worse than Russia. These pirates will strip England, Europe and America of every pfenning of wealth and unlike Russia, not give it to the People of a sovereign nation. These international energy consortiums have tremendous power in the West. Note how McCain chose as a running mate a woman in their pay!

The US is ruled ruthlessly by a pair of oil buddies from Texas and Wyoming. Bush and Cheney have grossly enriched themselves and their friends and colleagues in the oil industries. Fabulous wealth has poured into the coffers of these killers. The audacious move to take over OPEC via military force nearly succeeded. Once the oil consortiums took over Iraq and then Iran, the weight of power over OPEC would have fallen into the greedy hands of these international pirates. Who work in consortium with international banking families who are very eager to control the flow of wealth going to Muslims.

They are on a classic 'Horns of Dilemma'. They dearly want to get filthy rich milking the population of the earth who depend on energy systems for survival. They want very high oil prices so they can get rich. But they don't want Muslims or Russians to benefit from all this. They don't want too high prices, either, or the people of the planet might wise up and kill them. Palaces will be stormed by enraged masses just like in 1917 and onwards! And the fear is, these masses now know where the money is flowing and who to attack.

This is why ethnic cleansing is the preferred European imperial weapon. Throughout history, the rulers of Europe allowed this in order to distract the mobs from THEM. Britain, for example, wants Russia to be passive while England encourages, funds and assists ethnic cleansing in Georgia. Then uses Russia's response to this provocation to declare economic war on Russia. The plan is to still get the high energy profits for the major corporations that pay Brown and Blair to fight for them, not England. England gets exactly NO benefits from all this.

The price of energy is climbing. Normally, this means the buyers of energy try hard to please the sellers so the price goes down. Declaring war on the sellers works ONLY if the seller has been totally disarmed by the corrupt United Nations. But Russia not only sits on the Security Council, Russia is allied with another great power on this council: CHINA. And China is a customer for oil just like England. Only China is being NICE to Russia....and Venezuela....and Saudi Arabia....and Iran....and all of OPEC. China has been reaping the harvest of this diplomatic and social niceness.

The leaders of the major oil pumping nations are HAPPY when Hu and Wen fly into their lands to make more deals. The Chinese come armed with contracts to sign and offers of all sorts of assistance. They made a historic conquest last year when they got a firm alliance going with Russia. From that moment onwards, the chances of Europe and America, huge energy consumers, of trapping and then hammering Russia vanished.

The gambit of using ethnic cleansing to seize a historic hunk of the Russian Empire will now fail. Utterly. China isn't endorsing the IDEA of ethnic fissures but they are definitely on Russia's side in re-absorbing Georgia. Georgia is like Tibet in this regard. Commentators in the West totally misunderstand the innermost thinking in the minds of the Chinese. They are building the New World Order. And this means clipping US and EU wings. And they want to set up the concept of a working empire which is at odds with the US and EU pretenses of NOT building empires while building empires. This faux democracy front is so fake, we are rapidly losing all concept of democracy in the West at this point as both Europe and the US turn rapidly into Stalinist police states.

The Prime Minister argues for more funding to build a pipeline from the Caspian Sea carrying gas through Turkey to the West, avoiding the traditional route through Russia and its satellites. Analysts had speculated that the Nabucco pipeline project would be jeopardised by the invasion of Georgia.

Music historians have long perpetuated a powerful myth about the famous Va, pensiero chorus sung in the third act by the Hebrew slaves. Scholars have long believed the audience, responding with nationalistic fervor to the slaves' powerful hymn of longing for their homeland, demanded an encore of the piece. As encores were expressly forbidden by the government at the time, such a gesture would have been extremely significant. However, recent scholarship puts this and the corresponding myth of Va, pensiero as the national anthem of the Risorgimento, to rest. Although the audience did indeed demand an encore, it was not for "Va, pensiero" but rather for the hymn "Immenso Jehova," sung by the Hebrew slaves to thank God for saving his people. In light of these new revelations, Verdi's position as the musical figurehead of the Risorgimento has been correspondingly downplayed. Today, Va, pensiero is regularly given an encore when performed; interestingly, it is the only encore Metropolitan Opera conductor James Levine has ever allowed

Naming a pipeline set up to feed Israel and Europe energy from deep inside of what was once the Russian Empire 'Nabucco' is...GOOD GODS! TALK ABOUT INSANE! This has all the indicators of the Apocalypse! This opera is all about how Jewish slaves overthrew the Persian empire. In Jewish history, all sorts of tiny disorders have been elevated into major victories of the Jews who are always slaves when they migrate into someone's country! When they left Egypt, they actually ROBBED their neighbors first and then fled into the Sinai. Where they then killed each other and then regrouped do they could assault Palestine.

The very name is a provocation. The fact that this is possibly going to trigger a massive global war between Europe and the US and Russia and China is even more reason to oppose this pipeline under present conditions. The irresponsibly hot talk from the West is so like Hitler, it isn't funny anymore. I am horrified.

As the nation focuses on Sen. John McCain's choice of running mate, President Bush has quietly moved to expand the reach of presidential power by ensuring that America remains in a state of permanent war.

Buried in a recent proposal by the Administration is a sentence that has received scant attention -- and was buried itself in the very newspaper that exposed it Saturday. It is an affirmation that the United States remains at war with al Qaeda, the Taliban and "associated organizations."

Part of a proposal for Guantanamo Bay legal detainees, the provision before Congress seeks to “acknowledge again and explicitly that this nation remains engaged in an armed conflict with Al Qaeda, the Taliban, and associated organizations, who have already proclaimed themselves at war with us and who are dedicated to the slaughter of Americans.”

Let's all thank AIPAC for this piece of garbage. Mission accomplished. If the US thinks it can become eternally rich with eternal war with all the Persian Empires out there, this is pure madness. The Jewish financiers funding AIPAC are very powerful and note how they slip into law all sorts of mischief they hope the war-weary US will ignore. This legislation was not trumpeted by our putative representatives in Congress. Bush will sign it silently. The fact is, the media which is mostly owned by outright Zionists, won't make an issue about this matter.

This is why Obama has gained some ground in his attempt at the Presidency. He bowed to AIPAC and the media relented on him. Right now, antiwar demonstrators in Minnesota are being arrested and harassed by the paramilitary skinhead troopers who are treating us like Iraqis. The ruling elites are warmongers. They deluge the US public with bloodthirsty rhetoric while at the same time, protecting the emperor as he denies Americans essential services.

The Katrina Redux is to be proof that the media and our real rulers actually love us. They actually said, they will protect us...THIS TIME AROUND. Only Gustav is messing with their plans of destroying Russian power. If our oil rigs are destroyed, the bluster aimed at Iran and Russia is destroyed. So our rulers are chewing their claws to a nub with worry.

The United States has relatively very little in the way of commercial relations with Russia, and therefore there are not powerful business interests here to counteract those whose primary goal is the projection of imperial power, or making money from arms sales. The Republican presidential candidate, Senator John McCain, has been consistently bellicose towards Russia and had previously - long before the current military conflict -- called for expelling Russia from the G-8.

Eventually, our foreign policy establishment will have to adjust to the realities of the 21st century, in which Washington cannot simply tell the rest of the world what to do. They will learn to accept a multi-polar world where diplomacy, international law, and negotiations play a much larger role and military force and threats are much less significant. The question, as always, is how much Americans and the world will lose in blood and treasure before that happens.

In the meantime, the media coverage of this latest conflict shows how far we have to go before common sense can prevail. Appearing on Meet the Press on the Sunday following the eruption of armed conflict, David Broder, a Washington Post columnist who is the embodiment of inside-the-beltway conventional wisdom, said that this was "particularly a moment where John McCain can claim to have been prescient, because . . . he draws a very sharp line when it comes to Russia. ."

It won't be a 'multipolar world' in ten years. It will be unipolar. Europe can't exist as a confounded confederation of ethnic and religious groups that hate each other so much, the Walloons and the Belgians can't even agree on a government in a country not even the size of New Jersey? No 'nation' in the European confederation is even remotely as large as either Alaska or Texas. The only reason the European confederation can exist is because it, like Japan and England, is piggy-back riding the US military. If the US goes bankrupt or descends into open civil war, this vanishes. All empires, when they fail economically, fail politically.

What is at stake here is exactly how much 'blood and treasure' we might lose. If we start WWIII, we lose everything, totally. This totality is to be greatly feared. I knew the minute Reagan embraced the Star Wars concept, we would toy with the notion of holding the entire planet hostage to our new Pax Romana. We would then use this as a tool to rob people of their resources. And to defy the planet when we screw up.

The days of doing this with impunity ended with our unsuccessful invasion of Iraq. It is not far in the future when the US ends its 100 year war with Iraq and is booted out just like the Brits before us. The new Iraq/Iran confederation will be stronger than the European confederation. For the Iraqi majority population will be in total linguistic and religious harmony with the majority of Iranians!

Matthew Chance: Many people around the world, even though you're not the president of Russia anymore, see you as the main decision maker in this country. Wasn't you that ordered Russian forces into Georgia and you who should take responsibility for the consequences?

Vladimir Putin: Of course, that's not the case. In accordance with the Constitution of the Russian Federation, the issues of foreign policy and defense are fully in the hands of the president. The president of the Russian Federation was acting within his powers.

As is known, yours truly was at that time at the opening of the Olympic Games in Beijing. This alone made it impossible for me to take part in preparing that decision, although of course, President Medvedev was aware of my opinion on that issue. I'll be frank with you, and actually there is no secret about it, we had of course considered all the possible scenarios of events, including direct aggression by the Georgian leadership.

We had to think beforehand about how to provide for the security of our peace-keepers and of the citizens of the Russian Federation who are residents of South Ossetia. But, I repeat, such a decision could only be taken by the president of the Russian Federation, the commander in chief of the armed forces, Mr. Medvedev. It's his decision.

Comparing Putin's frank and honest talk with the lies our own politicians tell: sigh. Our politicians have this huge hole in the conversation they dare not enter: Jewish domination of all levels of US foreign policy. Recently, a very kind reader of Culture of Life News sent me an interesting book, 'The Limits of Power' by Andrew J. Bacevich. This book sounds totally reasonable, totally smart until someone like me reads it.

It should be renamed, 'The UNLIMITED Power'. For during and entire book talking endlessly about every nation on earth and its relations to the US and history, only ONE nation is NEVER mentioned except very obliquely just one time only: Israel! Mr. Bacevich is a member of the New World Order organization, the Council of Foreign Relations. This is the stew pot for all the stupid people who have worked tirelessly to destroy the US as an economic and political power. Mr. Bachevich is upset that his 28 year old son was blown up while he was trying to suppress the Iraqi freedom fighters.

This tool of the Real Rulers did a fabulous job of NOT telling the truth about ANYTHING while sounding totally sane and utterly honest. This level of dishonesty is typical of all the guys paid by the rulers to deflect or destroy our ability to see the truth. The truth is connected to the Apocalypse and is attached to the very same spot where King David, according to Jewish legends, stopped the Angel of Death on the threshing floor of a non-Jewish man who happened to live where Jerusalem was built. This threshing floor actually was the habitation of the Goddess of the Moon.

The occult nature of 'magic' comes from the ability to be totally visible while being invisible. The Ring of Power of Tolkien captured this concept nearly perfectly. To be able to rule but not be seen is the height of power. Note the invisible gods excel in this dark art. The nature of what assails us and what is driving us relentlessly into the Apocalypse is the gravest danger facing all humanity. In the mainstream, we hear about 'born again' Christians and McCain chose an oil-soaked believer in the Apocalypse as a running mate: she is a perfect Whore of Babylon on absolutely every level.

Back to Putin: he discusses the complex history of the southern borders of the Russian Empire with great clarity. Earlier, in Europe, he reminded everyone about Catherine the Great, the Prussian Princess. He has been patiently explaining history to everyone who listens. In the West, this is virtually no one. In China, the leadership gave him a very careful hearing and are now acting on this information. The agreement between both empires is an understanding of history, necessity and power. The Chinese are very attuned to power flows and the concept of invisible power while wielding god-like powers was embodied in Mao so they are very aware of this force.

But I would like to recall that all these state entities, each in its own time, voluntarily integrated into the Russian Empire. Back in the mid-18th century, in 1745-1747, Ossetia was the first to become part of the Russian Empire. At that time, it was a united entity; North and South Ossetia were one state.

In 1801, if my memory serves me, Georgia itself, which was under some pressure from the Ottoman Empire, voluntarily became part of the Russian Empire.

It was only 12 years later, in 1812, that Abkhazia became part of the Russian Empire. Until that time, it had remained an independent state, an independent principality.

It was only in the mid-19th century that the decision was taken to incorporate South Ossetia into the Tiflis province. Within a common state, the matter was regarded as not very important. But I can assure you that subsequent years showed that the Ossetians did not much like it. However, de facto they were put by the tsar's central government under the jurisdiction of what is now Georgia.

When, after World War I, the Russian Empire broke up, Georgia declared its own state while Ossetia opted for staying within Russia; this happened right after the events of 1917.

In 1918, as a result of this, Georgia conducted a rather brutal punitive operation there, and in 1921, it repeated it.

When the Soviet Union was formed, these territories, by Stalin's decision, were definitively given to Georgia. As you know, Stalin was ethnically Georgian.

Therefore, those who insist that those territories must continue to belong to Georgia are Stalinists: They defend the decision of Josef Vissarionovich Stalin.

Putin wants to educate us. We want to be stupid. Stupid Presidential candidates always fare better than smart ones. We want to be led by the Common Man even if it is a series of very spoiled brats of one particular political clan, for example. All the political clans run on and on like the Rockerfellers, the Kennedys, the Bushes or the Clintons, just for a very few examples. There are many such. Udalls, Reagans, Cuomos, etc, etc just off the top of my head. They all talk 'stoopid.' They dare not talk like elites. This is why the total outsider, Obama, was accused by the media talking head liars, as an 'elitist'.

Obama is a tool of the elites. But he is a total outsider and he troubles them. What if he goes against their orders? This means a very messy assassination or impeachment over some trivial matter. Bush can get away with repeated gross negligence, outright criminal conspiracy and many Constitutional offenses big and small and 'impeachment is off the table'. But then, the ruling elites used the anthrax assassin as well as enabling the 9/11 assassins so letting the dark, invisible Ring of Power to deal with difficulties is pretty obvious. Obama signed his death warrant by choosing Biden who is 100% ruling elite as a running mate.

Of course, McCain and his Apocalyptic witch are in harmony: both want to have a Final Confrontation and Conflagration. I guess McCain thinks, he has a choice of which house to hide in when the bombs destroy the rest of this nation.

Matthew Chance: The raw as you've mentioned areas of cooperation still between the United States and Russia, particularly for instance over the issue of Iran's very controversial nuclear program.

Are you suggesting that you may withdraw your cooperation with the United Nations in tackling that problem from the United States if the diplomatic pressure were to be ruptured up between Russian and the West?

Vladimir Putin: Russia has been working very consistently and in good faith with its partners on all problems, those that I've mentioned and those that you added. We do so not because someone asks us and we want to look good to them. We are doing it because this is consistent with our national interests, because in these areas, our national interests coincide with those of many European countries and of the United States. If no one wants to talk to us about these problems and cooperation with Russia becomes unnecessary, God bless, do this work yourself.

Matthew Chance: And what about the issue of energy supply, because obviously European countries in particular are increasingly dependent on Russian gas and on Russian oil. Would Russia ever use the supply of energy to western Europe as a leaver to apply pressure should the diplomatic tensions be ratcheted up?

Vladimir Putin: We have never done it. Construction of the first gas pipeline system was started during the 1960s, at the height of the Cold War, and for all those years, from the 1960s until this day, Russia has been fulfilling its contract obligations in a very consistent and reliable way, regardless of the political situation.

We never politicize economic relations, and we are quite astonished at the position of some U.S. administration officials who travel to European capitals trying to persuade the Europeans not to buy our products, natural gas for example, in a truly amazing effort to politicize the economic sphere. In fact, it's quite pernicious.

It's true that the Europeans depend on our supplies but we too depend on whoever buys our gas. That's interdependence; that's precisely the guarantee of stability.

The US still wants Russia to do our bidding. And Putin is basically and diplomatically tellling us to jump in a lake or go to hell or both. The US and Europe, while preparing for a confrontation over Iran, are trying desperately to find some solution to their energy problems. They know the Middle East will be in flames. The hope is, the US will assist Israel in destroying all military power in Iran. The attempt to disarm Iran has floundered in the UN and is, as of today, totally dead. Neither Russia nor China are even slightly interested in this process anymore.

The US whining about the Olympics has united the Chinese against the West. Patriotism is flowering there due to Western attempts at destroying China, upending their government and driving wedges between ethnic and religious groups in China. This failure has epic repercussions! The US thinks this is a game. For the Chinese, it is survival. Since they are serious and we are addle-brained, they will resolutely follow their own chosen path which is all about clipping our economic wings so we can't wage endless wars. Pax China will rise like a Phoenix in Asia. This is History. We can't stop the Wheel of History anymore than we can persuade the Furies to ignore hubris or the Norns, fate.

Europe doesn't want to buy things from Russia. They want to LOOT Russia. Europe and American don't want to buy things from China. They want to ENSLAVE the hardy Chinese workers. Far from being all about peace and freedom, the real goals of the West as is the secret desires of the rulers is to ENSLAVE AND LOOT. Europe did this with total impunity from 1600 to 2000 AD. The idea that this is over and done with and now in reverse is hard to accept. Europe and the US want desperately to believe that the magic Ring of Power which is nuclear bombs will allow the loot and enslave business to continue....this is pure Nabucco madness.

Iran's first Russian-built nuclear power plant in the southern city of Bushehr will become operational by the end of 2008, Moscow says.

"Russia is seriously committed to completing and running Bushehr power plant in the shortest possible time," Russia's ambassador to Tehran, Alexander Sadovnikov, said Saturday.

Russia began the delivery of 82 tons of nuclear fuel to Bushehr in late 2007, giving rise to speculation that the Iranian power plant would become operational earlier in 2008.

According to the Russian envoy, the delays have been caused by 'sanctions imposed by Western powers'.

Russia is moving very fast now that the game has moved from diplomacy to open warfare. The Russians hoped the latest US elections would be all about peace, not more wars. But I noted long ago, the media owners want war and they use their own Ring of Power that keeps them cloaked in invisibility so they can manipulate the masses into wanting only pro-war candidates. So we have both vying for the crown of Evil Warlord rather than Sane Diplomat. And if Obama does play Sane Diplomat, he will be eliminated totally and with harsh prejudice. The Praetorian Guard will either let down their guard or he will be invited to go to Texas to give a speech for 'unity'. Even if he avoids open cars and crowds, it is laughably easy to eliminate him. And I would suggest, he is smart enough to know this.

Bank of China has cut its portfolio of securities issued or guaranteed by troubled US mortgage financiers Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac by a quarter since the end of June.

The sale by China’s fourth largest commercial bank, which reduced its holdings of so-called agency debt by $4.6bn, is a sign of nervousness among foreign buyers of Fannie and Freddie’s bonds and guaranteed securities.over the mortgage financiers’ capital positions and the timing and structure of a potential government rescue has made some investors reassess their exposures. Asian investors in particular have become net sellers of agency debt, said analysts.

Federal Reserve custody data shows that for the year to July, foreign official and private investors bought an average of $20bn of agency debt a month, including debt issued by other government agencies such as Ginnie Mae and the Federal Home Loan Banks. Purchases of US Treasuries averaged $9.25bn.

From July 16 to August 20, foreign investors sold $14.7bn of agency debt, trimming their overall holdings to $972bn. They purchased $71.1bn of Treasuries in the same period.

Our days of whine and bozos is ending. The Chinese 'be bank' and is pulling our credit line. Right in time for hurricanes to hammer us again. We can't beg them for more money. The very inflationary stimulus package dampened American fears of finances but fueled inflation. The temporary drop in oil prices has fooled everyone into thinking this would lead back to the wonderland of $10 a barrel oil of the Clinton years.

This is not going to happen. Russia was weak back then and being looted by Europe. Today, it is one of the greatest powers on earth with the new alliance with China which was weak back in 1992. Today, it is a giant that straddles all of Asia and is now flexing its muscles. China doesn't need us anymore. They can rule the world without us. And luckily, they know about the Apocalypse because some of them lived with me. They know that this worries me more than anything. They want PEACE, not TOTAL WAR. And if we are fortunate, they will dictate peace terms to us before we blow up the entire planet.

To avoid all this, all we have to do is disarm. Like we want the Iranians to do. We can also beg Russia and China to disarm. This would be Heaven, not Hell. Which takes me back to the innermost reality of the Outer Darkness: when lightning strikes, the positive and negative polarity is united. Up is down and in is out and everything is nothing and one either dies or is reborn! We are nearing such a state.

Hurricane Gustav looks to be an epic storm. It will swell in size as it slowly drifts northwards over the 'sweet spot' which is nearly dead-center in the huge Gulf of Mexico bathtub. Two years has passed with no major hurricanes here so there is lots and lots of inert, warm water to stir up. A category 5 hurricane can easily destroy much of the US offshore oil drilling facilities. Also, England is seeing energy prices shoot upwards as the North Sea energy depletes much, much faster than estimated. And China is busy buying up the oil fields of Iraq. We get the wrong end of THIS stick, don't we? We may see oil rationing? A possibility this winter.

Note the density of rigs. Since the price of oil has shot through the roof this last 5 years thanks to the US oil wars, there are many, many more active rigs this year compared to say, 2005. A hurricane is like a huge egg beater set on high speed. As the water is churned from the atmosphere all the way down to the bottom of the Gulf of Mexico, this creates many waves of huge size. Below is an artful attempt at making a faux oil rig out of a Jägermeister liquor glass with a wineglass stem. The salsa cap represents the platform itself, the stem is the connection to the bottom of the gulf where the oil is pumped and the champagne cork is the upper stories of these rigs where the workers live, etc.

Maybe I should cut back in my drinking. Heh.

Hurricanes are huge, violent intensities that reach from the upper atmosphere, even to the lower stratosphere all the way to the bottom of the ocean. If we were fishes, we would 'see' these mega-storms as if they were tornadoes. Fishes flee these storms because they are quite violent. The connection of the platforms to the ocean bed is fairly secure in normal seas. Storms that are below a category 3 are easily shrugged off. But once the storms hit the fast forward button, when winds roar to over 170 mph or even 200 mph, the hurricane becomes one great big tornado that can literally pick up a great portion of the ocean itself and fling it forwards. When this hits anything in its path, that thing is destroyed.

Water is very heavy. Anyone who doubts this simply can pick up a large bucket of water and carry it. A bucket of water, when dumped suddenly, can erode the ground to a visible degree. When a hundred square miles of agitated ocean water is spun upwards at the center of the hurricane, this can bring down nearly anything in its path.

Fixed Platforms

These platforms are built on concrete and/or steel legs anchored directly onto the seabed, supporting a deck with space for drilling rigs, production facilities and crew quarters. Such platforms are, by virtue of their immobility, designed for very long term use (for instance the Hibernia platform). Various types of structure are used, steel jacket, concrete caisson, floating steel and even floating concrete. Steel jackets are vertical sections made of tubular steel members, and are usually piled into the seabed. Concrete caisson structures, pioneered by the Condeep concept, often have in-built oil storage in tanks below the sea surface and these tanks were often used as a flotation capability, allowing them to be built close to shore (Norwegian fjords and Scottish firths are popular because they are sheltered and deep enough) and then floated to their final position where they are sunk to the seabed. Fixed platforms are economically feasible for installation in water depths up to about 1,700 feet (520 m).

Compliant Towers

These platforms consist of narrow, flexible towers and a piled foundation supporting a conventional deck for drilling and production operations. Compliant towers are designed to sustain significant lateral deflections and forces, and are typically used in water depths ranging from 1,500 and 3,000 feet (450 and 900 m).

Semi-submersible Platform

These platforms have legs of sufficient buoyancy to cause the structure to float, but of weight sufficient to keep the structure upright. Semi-submersible rigs can be moved from place to place; can be ballasted up or down by altering the amount of flooding in buoyancy tanks; they are generally anchored by with chain, wire rope and/or polyester rope during drilling operations, though they can also be kept in place by the use of dynamic positioning. Semi-submersibles can be used in water depths from 200 to 10,000 feet (60 to 3,050 m).

Jack-up Platforms

Jackups, as the name suggests, are platforms that can be jacked up above the sea using legs which can be lowered like jacks. These platforms are typically used in water depths up to 400 feet (120 m), although some designs can go to 550 feet (170 m) depth. They are designed to move from place to place, and then anchor themselves by deploying the legs to the ocean bottom using a rack and pinion gear system on each leg.

Drillships

A drillship is a maritime vessel that has been fitted with drilling apparatus. It is most often used for exploratory drilling of new oil or gas wells in deep water but can also be used for scientific drilling. Early versions were built on a modified tanker hull, but purpose-built designs are used today. Most drillships are outfitted with a dynamic positioning system to maintain position over the well. They can drill in water depths up to 12,000 feet (3,660 m).

The last batch of bad hurricanes made a total mess of the previous rigs in the Gulf. Katrina was a very big storm but this one could surpass Katrina in size, heft, dynamism and other bad features. Fortunately for everyone, it will be less than a quarter moon when the hurricane makes landfall so we won't have the moon's gravitational pull making things even worse. It looks pretty certain that all the oil rigs of every type will be shut down as much as possible.

When Katrina, Rita and then Wilma all wrecked havoc last time in 2005, the government lied about all this. They really did pretend that nothing was really amiss. This time around, there is so much worry and fear about oil prices and availability, all eyes will be on these precious rigs. The G7 nations were working very hard at trying to up the value of the dollar and bring down world oil prices this summer. And prices fell as speculators were forced to use much higher margins. Oil has settled down between $110-125 a barrel. Last year, exactly a year ago, I wrote about how it could double in price when it was 'only' $65 a barrel. Well, just like in 2005, we will see a big spike in prices by October.

Right now, everyone is pretty much holding their breaths. Hurricanes are notorious for shifting gears. We saw the wanderings of the last hurricane that wandered in and out of Florida for nearly a week. Fay was very fey. It wandered off across the Southwest, flooding everything in sight. This one, though, is making a beeline across the Gulf. And anyone who thinks oil will keep falling as the US and Europe simultaneously twist Putin's nose, screaming about how we don't need his oil or gas....while Mother Nature smashes a big portion of the US oil markets...incredible.

And very stupid. The G7 think, just because they are all wizards who can wave magic wands and make paper money have value, they control world energy markets. They do not. In 2005, everyone babied the US and gave us lots of oil after the hurricanes. This year, there is little mood to feed the voracious energy appetites of the US public. Certainly, China is too busy rebuilding after the earthquakes to give us much and after our epic howl-a-thonic histrionic hysteria during the Olympics, the Chinese purse may stay shut. And Russia will laugh at us. Europe and Japan can't feed our desires for oil. Only OPEC and Russia can do this.

Offshore oil and gas operators in the Gulf of Mexico are evacuating platforms and rigs in the path of Hurricane Gustav. The Minerals Management Service has activated its Continuity of Operations Plan team to monitor the operators’ activities. This team will be activated until operations return to normal and the storm is no longer a threat to the Gulf of Mexico oil and gas activities.

Based on data from offshore operator reports submitted as of 11:30 a.m. CST today, personnel have been evacuated from a total of 223 production platforms, equivalent to 31.1 % of the 717 manned platforms in the Gulf of Mexico. Production platforms are the structures located offshore from which oil and natural gas are produced. These structures remain in the same location throughout a project’s duration unlike drilling rigs which typically move from location to location.

Personnel from 45 rigs have also been evacuated; this is equivalent to 37.2 % of the 121 rigs currently operating in the Gulf. Rigs can include several types of self-contained offshore drilling facilities including jackups, submersibles and semisubmersibles.

From the operators’ reports, it is estimated that approximately 76.77 % of the oil production in the Gulf has been shut-in. Estimated current oil production from the Gulf of Mexico is 1.3 million barrels of oil per day. It is also estimated that approximately 37.16 % of the natural gas production in the Gulf has been shut-in. As of June 2008, estimated current natural gas production from the Gulf of Mexico was 7.0 billion cubic feet of gas per day. Since that time, gas production from the Independence Hub facility has increased and current gas production from the Gulf is estimated at 7.4 billion cubic feet of gas per day.

Three quarters of the oil is no longer being pumped. This is a HUGE reduction. The uncertainty of the path of the hurricane is forcing this and if it is a massive category 5+ then ALL the rigs may be in grave danger of destruction, even total annihilation. Anchors will be dragged about and these will snag pipelines lying on the sea floor.

Rigs will be ripped out of their footings or torn from their anchors and crash into others. In Katrina, one rig was jammed under a highway bridge. There are several forces of nature we can't tame, control or sometimes even endure: meteorite or comet strikes, mega-storms, volcanic eruptions or 9+ earthquakes and attending tsunamis. Oh, and the sun blowing up, of course. Don't want to forget that. My grandfather who was an astronomer, loved to remind me of this possibility. It is a wonder I survived my childhood intact.

This is an amazing storm any way we look at it. The eye, even as it crashes into Cuba, is very well defined. The skirts of the storm's heaviest rain is deep and wide. And it has been grinding along the chain of Caribbean islands that inhibit total hurricane growth. If it is a category 4 in this circumstance and since all hurricanes, once they enter the center of the bathtub, grow worse, this one will be worse than worse. Wilma, for example, was a category 2 when she dipped her little toe in the tub. In less than 90 minutes, she shot upwards to a category 5. There is an upper limit to hurricane strength. But this is at a level that is so destructive, it really doesn't matter if the winds are 240 or 270 miles per hour, for example. Hurricane Andrew hit shore in Florida as a long series of tornadoes, for example. These were a lot faster than 200 mph, each.

In 2005, only two platforms produced more than 100,000 barrels a day; this summer, six are producing at that level or are preparing to do so. Since 2005, oil and gas production has increasingly shifted to deeper water off the coast of Louisiana, with a handful of giant platforms generating volumes once produced by dozens of small, shallow-water facilities.

The industry has had two relatively quiet hurricane seasons since the devastation caused by Hurricanes Katrina and Rita in 2005. The two hurricanes damaged 75% of offshore platforms and resulted in the shutting in of 103 million barrels of oil and 610 billion cubic feet of gas production, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration.

Drillers and producers have attempted to shore up their infrastructure to prevent similarly widespread damage from the next major hurricane to sweep through the Gulf of Mexico. But with Gustav projected to pass directly through the Gulf's main production zone early next week, potentially as a Category 4 hurricane, there are no guarantees. While the Gulf is layered with thousands of platforms and miles of pipeline, a handful are responsible for the bulk of production, and will be most closely watched in a storm.

"There are a lot of things in the industry that have improved since the '04 and '05 seasons, but at the end of the day, it's going to be a question of how destructive storms are and how powerful they are when they go through the Gulf," said David Dismukes, associate executive director of the Center for Energy Studies at Louisiana State University.

The oil riggers lead very dangerous lives, providing us with the fuel to tool around in cool cars. And the rigs offshore are far, far more expensive to build, run and manage than landward systems. So the oil companies do work hard to secure and protect these investments. But again: Mother Nature doesn't give a fig about this. She created this oil by being extremely nasty periodically and killing, crushing and then burying billions of tons of living things so we can tap them later and use them as fuel. If Mother Nature was a pleasant dame, we would have a lot less oil.

The global gold rush for more oil has been in the areas most vulnerable to weather depredations. This is a feature of the Hubbert Oil Peak. All the easy oil has been found. We now have to go to more and more challenging places to find less and less oil.

(CNN) -- Authorities began ordering mandatory evacuations along Louisiana and Mississippi's Gulf Coast on Saturday as Hurricane Gustav roared past Cuba and into the Gulf of Mexico. "They made it very clear that this storm could be as bad as it gets," Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal said Saturday afternoon of the Category 4 storm, with sustained winds that reached 150 mph. "We could see flooding even worse than we saw in Hurricane Katrina."

Thousands of people had begun fleeing the coast by the time a hurricane watch was issued Saturday afternoon for southeastern Texas to the Alabama-Florida border as Gustav pursued a projected path toward the U.S. Gulf Coast.

The watch, which means hurricane conditions are possible within 36 hours, was announced the day after many in the region marked the third anniversary of Katrina's landfall.

At 5 p.m. ET, the eye of Gustav was about 130 miles (210 km) east-northeast of Cuba's western tip and moving northwest about 15 mph.

I remember the Fall of 2005. The government thought Mother Nature was a great form of urban renewal. Killing, scattering or destroying the homes of the poor would fix New Orleans for the better. Then, they announced they wanted $250 billion to rebuild the joint. The Chinese said no so it wasn't rebuilt as fancy as the developers wanted. Now, we may see even more destruction. Certain cities in the past have been doomed by such forces. They can be rebuilt like in Indonesia. I wouldn't want to live where tsunamis can wipe everyone out with virtually no warning. But then, the biggest populations on earth are in these sorts of places like Bangladesh, for example.

Just like in California, building houses that can survive the fires and earthquakes there, the hurricane alley cities should have more research into how to build hurricane-proof homes and then enforce the codes that force people to build within this system. After all, if a roof is ripped off or a building torn from its foundations, it becomes a wrecking ball and destroys neighbor's homes. Rational building is an art we seem unable to want or practice.

CNN) -- Iraq has signed its first major oil deal with a foreign company since the fall of Saddam Hussein's regime, a spokesman for the Iraqi Oil Ministry said Saturday. It was the first time in more than 35 years that Iraq has allowed foreign oil companies to do business inside its borders.

The contract with the China National Petroleum Corporation could be worth up to $3 billion. It would allow the CNPC to develop an oil field in southern Iraq's Wasit province for about 20 years, Oil Ministry spokesman Assim Jihad said.

Iraq's Cabinet must still approve the contract, but Jihad said that would happen soon and work could start within a few months.

China is buying oil systems and fields. The US can go begging to Iraq for oil to replace the lost Gulf of Mexico oil. But then, the US has the national reserves. I am betting this will be used. But if there is no rationing, it will all be a waste of time. If it means higher and higher profits for the oil companies, it will simply drain the economy further. Pumping it out to sell it to US consumers, if they are not serious about controlling our manic use of oil, it will be a waste.

The Chinese are rapidly bidding higher and higher and locking us out of more and more oil opportunities.

Britain's plans for a new generation of nuclear power stations will face a fierce challenge for skills and resources from countries keen to build their own, according to research published today.

China has plans for 24 nuclear plants and outline proposals for another 76, according to the Economic Research Council, using figures from the International Energy Agency and the IAEA.

"China's plans indicate its key role in new nuclear build, and the impact of just a small element of its projects being realised would have major implications for new nuclear build capacity — and the many constraints," according to the ERC.

The Chinese are on a roll, aren't they? Maybe if we can start a war with them. Like Europe and the US seem bent, doing this to Russia. Russia and China are forming an oil-power alliance of user and seller which is going about the planet, rapidly building a New Consensus. And this is all about them rationing the oil for dollars business. Namely, dollars decline in value as trade tokens while the power lies in the hands of the developers and political centers where there is enough muscle to ensure contracts. Namely, the nuclear powers of China and Russia, working in tandem.

NEVER did they do this in the past! Since 1955, Russia and China's rulers were at each other's throats. Mao even thought it a neat coup to haul in Nixon and make a deal the Russians hated! Today: Putin and Hu are on the same page, playing the same 'Ride of the Valkyries.' If the consumer nations like the US and most of Europe think they can bully either Russia or China, they are total fools. And these hurricanes will simply aggravate things even more. In favor of Russia and China.

The US basically has no nuclear power program. We barely have any alternative energy programs. We let years slip by while not forcing people to incorporate sane energy/power use systems that would cut down US energy consumption which is a good one third of our trade deficit.

Npower and ScottishPower yesterday became the last of Britain's big six energy suppliers to raise household bills, adding at least £162 a year to millions of customers' heating costs.

This year energy bills have had the biggest annual rise since the energy market was privatised. Npower, the UK's fourth-biggest energy group, is increasing gas prices by 26 per cent and electricity bills by 14 per cent.

From yesterday, the company's 6.6 million customers will pay an average £162 more each year for gas and an extra £60 for electricity. At the same time, ScottishPower has raised its gas bills by 34 per cent, the second largest rise, British Gas having increased its gas prices by 35 per cent last month.

ScottishPower also announced that it had increased its electricity prices by 9 per cent; that will come into effect on Monday. The company's 1.2 million customers will pay £221 more a year on gas and an extra £38 for electricity.

England is well on the downslope of the Hubbert Oil Peak. The North Sea rigs are producing much, much less than expected. They thought the downslope would be gentle. Instead, it is very steep. This shows us that once the summit of oil production in any field is reached, the decline is totally unpredictable. England partied while the oil flowed. Now, the poor people there, deep in debt to the exact same degree and for the identical reasons the US public is deep in debt, now they have to pay through the nose for energy. People will die. The government will be pixilated. 'Hey, we joined the US in invading Iraq for the umpteenth time in the last 100 years and the CHINESE get the oil????' screams the dying Lion to the lounge lizard unicorn.

England still pulls the rags of its imperial ermine robes about its fleabitten shoulders and huffs. After all, they have hitched a one hundred year's ride on the coattails of the American empire. Why shouldn't they just invade Burma, the Middle East, Africa or any nation and just STEAL stuff? Attack China and loot the palaces there. Yes, this is the dark dreams that cause the Brits to flop about at night as they worry about how to pay the heating bills. For alas, Russia and China have nuclear bombs.

Centrica is being barred by the government from making a solo bid for British Energy, according to one of the nuclear generator's largest institutional shareholders.

The shareholder, who spoke on condition of anonymity, also questioned why preferred bidder EDF retains the 'irrational total support' of the government.

He said that a merger with Centrica to create a British champion would be better for shareholders because they could get a higher price and retain shares in the combined entity. 'But Centrica is unable to do a deal because the government is discouraging it,' he added.

Centrica plc, trading as British Gas (and as Scottish Gas in Scotland) is market leader in the supply of energy to UK households. In recent years the UK wholesale energy market has become more volatile, leading to increasing energy prices. Consequently the core residential energy business of British Gas has been running at a loss according to results released by parent, Centrica plc.

To help to manage price volatility, Centrica announced a variety of investments in new sources of supply that may help wholesale prices to come down in the future. During 2005, the company estimated that nearly £600 million was spent on new gas, power and renewable energy assets, with a further £400 million committed to help import more gas into the country.[10] Since 40% of electricity is generated by gas-powered stations, this investment was predicted to reduce the cost of electricity. In parallel, British Gas announced in July 2006 that they intend to improve customer service.

By early 2007 market reports suggested that UK wholesale energy prices had stabilised and started to fall. In March 2007 British Gas (and Scottish Gas) implemented the first price reductions in the UK residential energy market for six years, a move followed by other major energy suppliers. [11]. In late April 2007 British Gas again reduced prices, highlighting that some competitors had yet to reduce prices in 2007. Having suffered heavy losses of customers as prices were rising, British Gas claimed that the new environment of falling prices would allow them to grow their customer base. [12].

Meanwhile, the EU is investigating alleged malpractice in the wholesale market for gas and electricity supply across Europe. Allegations include the suggestion that gas supplies to the UK are restricted, contributing to increases in the wholesale price of gas in the UK. The conclusions of a competition inquiry into the EU energy sector were published in December 2006.

The draft conclusions, published in February 2006, confirmed fears by Brussels that former state monopolies in the major European markets (though not in the UK) were keeping a stranglehold on home markets, allowing them to control pricing - against the interests of consumers. Competition commissioner Neelie Kroes criticised excessive concentration in what she said reflects the "old market structure of national or regional monopolies".[13]

The EU is flopping about, trying desperately to bring down prices. They have to snag someone besides the very irritable, intelligent and well-connected Putin of Russia. The attempt at scaring him simply made him mad enough to stomp on everyone's toes and threaten to wipe out half of Europe. Ooops. Well, demonizing him may be fun but it won't keep energy prices cheap.

The hedges set up to 'make energy cheaper' are like planting privet hedges to stop a category five hurricane from smashing into your beach cottage. Hedges work only if there is peace and plenty. When things go haywire, there is no protections from Reality. For Reality is Mother Nature and She says, 'I don't care what stupid things people say and do, there are strict limits to oil production. Even thought oil is Death Incarnate, it is limited. Death, on the other hand, it limitless. It is eternal and total.'

The whining from commissioner Neelie Kroes is childish. She sounds like a teenager who thinks mom's purse is a bottomless fund system. She thinks that the 'old market structure' is excessive? HAHAHA. Welcome to reality, ain't she a bitch!

The EU clowns all think that the whole planet will become a confederation whereby everyone joins each other in doing what? Exploiting the Middle East by using the US military that is going bankrupt! And so they scold REAL countries who have REAL power. Snits who stick their noses in the air and grandly announce that mere countries dare not stop the confederation in setting economic rules! HAHAHA. China and Russia will make Europe eat dirt, first. If the Europeans were slightly smarter, they would look in the mirror. 'Oh my god! We started WWI and WWII! Wow! We are BAD GUYS!'

Continuing with remembering Katrina which happened a mere 3 years ago. There are still people who are 'homeless' after that huge storm wiped out much of New Orleans. The behavior of our emperor and his entire entourage was extremely racist and vicious. They didn't even try to pretend to give a hoot about the teeming masses of the poor who couldn't escape that death trap.

Here are some clippings from my archives which show clearly what was going on back then. There was NO EXCUSE for any of the gross negligence, incompetence and infantility shown during an entire month of slow-motion disasters. Note how the media protects McCain, for example, who was a cruel and useless man while thousands were drowning or sitting on roofs. He and Bush celebrated his stupid birthday! And he wants to lead America.

Dual citizen alien Chertoff is STILL head of the grossly misnamed 'Homeland Security' and he is about the closest thing we have to an invisible man except he is competing with Cheney for that coveted title. Letting these sorts of creatures run our empire is just plain stupid. The media touts McCain as an 'experienced' guy but so far, all I see is someone who can't give one hoot about millions losing their homes. Perhaps he imagines they can all jet off to various other homes, too many to count.

Right. This is what America wants? How insane is this? Well, maybe the gods will keep punishing us until we finally screw our heads back on straighter.

Short memories for most people but it has been exactly ONLY 3 years since Katrina led a group of very destructive hurricanes ashore. Today, we learn that Gustav will probably go into super-warm waters that can change a category 1 hurricane into a mega-category 5 in less than 24 hours. This is aimed straight at New Orleans yet again. Time to look at hurricanes and remember past storms and the feeble, disgusting, obnoxious behavior of our rulers in 2005.

The difference between a monster and a wimp for Gulf of Mexico hurricanes often comes down to a small patch of warm deep water that's easy to miss. It's called the Loop Current, and hurricane trackers say Gustav is headed right for it, reminiscent of Katrina.
*snip*
The meandering Loop Current, located in the southeastern gulf, provides loads of hurricane fuel. It was a key stopover for nearly all the Gulf Coast killers of the past, including Katrina and Camille, said Florida International University professor Hugh Willoughby, former director of the government's hurricane research division.
*snip*
In the last several years, meteorologists have focused more attention on the Loop Current, which is only a couple of hundred miles long and not even 100 miles wide. The evidence linking it to the worst storms is beyond circumstantial, Shay said.

What's crucial is the depth of warm water in the current — several hundred feet — because it provides continuous high-octane fuel for a storm. Hurricanes use the heat from the water to grow stronger and in the process they churn up cooler water from below, which then slows or stops the feeding process. But in the Loop Current, the deeper water is also warm and it further feeds the storm.

New Orleans isn't the only problem. Yes it and the facilities around it are a major US port. And directly in the path of this storm that will probably become very big indeed, lie many offshore oil rigs. The news today echoes the news from the end of September, 2005. Let's hope this echo doesn't become an exact reproduction.

First, here is an old story from 1900 when Galveston was utterly destroyed by a hurricane following the exact same path Gustav seems to be taking:

Here is a You Tube news story about the orphans who drowned in that huge hurricane:

Exactly 3 years ago, I started the last week of August with a story about how stupid, disgusting, peevish, childish and all around infantile our major media reporters were acting while visiting Bush. It was totally inappropriate because Bush announced just the day before, he had no time to spare to meet families of dead soldiers. Seriously, this article should be read to get a view of just how unsuitable and infantile our media guys are under normal circumstances.

From Editor and Publisher:
More than four dozen members of the press corps accepted an invitation to a barbeque at the Bush ranch in Texas last night, even though it was off-the-record and they had to ride a bus past the Cindy Sheehan-led antiwar camp site.

The party was pool side, though no one stripped and swam. The president wore jeans and served Texas beer.

Well, according to my secret photo you can see above, they did swim and they did strip! This is why they were sworn to secrecy. Like in a typical Skull and Bones bash, they had to worship the Devil of Death and dance around naked. Sounds like a typical Bohemia Club party, for that matter.

When the wunderkinder of the press were splashing each other and giggling in Crawford, death was sharpening his scythe in the Gulf. The Bush gang determinedly tried their damnedest to be as clueless as possible. This comes naturally to them. No effort at all. Ditto McCain as we shall see later.

As this storm approached Florida, there was little worry and then, as is characteristic of all large storms these days, it dumped a great deal of rain on people and killed some of them too. The blase attitude exhibited by the authorities is due entirely to them wanting to believe that global warming isn't happening and one of the chief effects of this is a hyper concentration of moisture in the oddest places as well as powerful hurricanes.
*snip*
New Orleans is the latest place in the Eye of the Storm. Last year, when one killer hurricane after another struck Florida and the Gulf coast, each storm slid past New Orleans. The one that nearly hit, they evacuated the city...except for the poor and the elderly who have no trasportation and no where to go. The mayor refused to house them and they survived that death trap only because the dice were rolled and the number was seven, not snake eyes.

Many people yelled at the mayor for this and this time, with only hours to go, they are reluctantly opening the stadium to the people. But evacuating the homebound has to be done door to door. I wonder if this is happening. I hope they help the elderly and ill and disabled.

I'll be frank here: as I reread all of my old stories from the following 30 days of pure hell, tears came to my eyes. Seeing it in the raw, as it was happening, is physically painful. Unlike Bush, Condi, John McCain or the others like Chertoff, etc, I felt for the victims even before the hurricane slammed into New Orleans. I clearly remember how at the last minute, the stadium was reluctantly opened to the masses of people who would have died, otherwise. I remember how horrified I was, the National Guard was NOT there. Was NOT evacuating hospitals and nursing homes. They were in Iraq.

Like on 9/11, another epic moment of total irresponsibility and downright criminal activity, Bush and his gang should have been arrested on the spot. They were not. They should have been charged with treason. They were let free. The media and the political money bag lobbyists all rushed into rescue these monsters. But anyone reading my old news service can plainly see, these people were pure traitors. Arrest them all. Including McCain.

The great hurricane is past but far from done. As flooding and general mayhem continues, the parts already hit wake up in a daze. There was a similar event back in the 1920s: the Great Flood. The Mississippi overflowed its banks and many people were stranded on high ground without food or water. And the Republican controlled government at first, sat idle....sounds familiar?
*snip*
Relief efforts required a lot of manual labor. As we can see now, flood and hurricane messes are worse than earthquakes because the water rots the standing housing base as well as the mud fills the remaining houses and is very difficult to move and you can't just bulldoze the houses down if there is lots of mud in them, for example, and shoveling them out is all hand labor.

This is why we had the National Guard. Already, people are nervously wondering what happened to them. So far, about 5,000 of them have appeared in three states to deal with this mess. To clean up just the roadbeds of debrie in about 500 costal communities and one major city, this is what? Ten guards per town? Eh? Cleaning up New Orleans which should take only two weeks if enough Guards were available would require about 15,000 National Guards minimum!

Unlike the previous hurricane where the media studiously ignored spectacular pictures of oil drilling rig failures, this time they couldn't stop the photo showing this huge rig wedged under a high bridge.

All the oil dealers saw it and went crazy and now the price of oil is way way up and it is going to climb and climb because transportation of all sorts is dead in the water in the Mississippi lowlands and this means no oil or gas production, PERIOD.

The reverberations from this will be immense this winter. We will be short of winter oil and possibly even natural gas!

More: we don't know the status of the oil rigs in the Gulf but this picture shows clearly, we will be lucky if half are useable. The multilevel mess here is hard to minimize. This hurricane struck in the heart of our fuel systems. We have systems in New Jersey and in Texas and in California but guess what?

Time once again to look to the recent past so we can see clearly where things are going today. I am rather vain about the fact that I have nearly always called the future correctly based on incoming information each daily cycle. It is even rather scary, how prescient my predictions are. Well, this is due to knowing where money and power come from: that lovely golden Cave of Death. Anyway, we have a small pause today in the news, the major news being Mother Nature taking aim at US oil rigs right when both of our candidates for emperor are threatening Russia and daring Russia to cut energy to Europe. So oil prices are jumping upwards like a frog on a French frying pan. We get to visit the BIS headquarters in Europe to learn more about global currency markets. Yikes.

Over half a trillion spent on goosing up the markets and there was less than two weeks of happy hysteria then reality returns and markets drop. The people destroying the economic power of the West aren't done yet. They can give this dead market a few more expensive jolts of electricity. But the debt ratios in the West are all nearing to or over 100% GNP. This means the economic rule of the European and American empires is about finished. The picnic at Jackson Hole this week is really a panic. The Bank of Japan is speaking there and will explain how to 'fix' everything, HAHAHA.

From Bloomberg:

The rally in 30-year Treasury bonds, the most profitable U.S. government securities in the past 15 months, may become a casualty of the Federal Reserve's efforts to ease a widening credit crunch.
Yields on so-called long bonds will increase because Fed Chairman Ben S. Bernanke may lower borrowing costs and cause consumer prices to rise at a faster pace, said Brian Carlin, head of fixed-income trading at JPMorgan Private Bank.

Investors will demand a ``higher risk premium,'' said Carlin, who helps oversee $100 billion of bonds in New York. ``Fed cuts may, in fact, turn out to be quasi-inflationary.''

This is the Horns of Dilemma, the Horn of Plenty is empty. As the US looks puzzled and shakes it ever harder hoping for goodies from Asia to pour out, it is time to talk about reality: the US cannot run all its economic systems in the red forever and forever. This is physically impossible. I have been saying this since the early 1970's. If we time-travel, we can see what was obvious back then.

HAHAHA. 'Quasi-inflationary'? What's that? Why, it is commodities shooting to the moon, that's what was so quasimoto about this desperate lunge to revive banking and global markets by handing out free loans to the biggest banking bandits. The hope was, this money would flow like a broken faucet into the pockets of US homeowners and thus, restarting the Home ATM machine business. People sit at home, it goes up in value, they go refinance themselves deeper into debt and continue being the Consumer Nation.

But it is the Crashing Nation. There is an upper limit to debt. All debtors hate this concept. The deeper into debt an entity, government, business, homeowner goes, the more debt they desire. This keeps things afloat. Once this is cut off, there is a cascade of unpaid bills that pile up rapidly the deeper into debt the entity is. This is why avoiding this condition is of greatest importance. This is all very sad, actually. The US experiment with eternal debt will end in the total loss of our entire empire and the dismemberment of our nation itself. History tells us this with greatest clarity.

When Spain went bankrupt trying to put down the Dutch and English 400 years ago, it gradually lost all of its many colonies and provinces ending with Napoleon invading and destroying the remainder of Spain. The Ottoman Empire nearly took Vienna in the 1600's even as Spain was fighting the Dutch. By 1800, the Ottoman empire was on the rocks. By 1920, the Ottoman empire itself was totally dismembered. The results of this are still relevant today. WWIII will probably be centered on wild attempts by Europe and the US to continue destroying and ripping apart that former empire. Only this probably won't happen. Not if the US goes bankrupt.

We see a clear pattern here: no empire lasts much after going bankrupt. Russia was very rapidly dismembered when it went bankrupt from 1990 to 2000. It is only beginning to reassemble itself. Now that Russia is solvent. Unlike the US which is deep, deep, deep in debt.

As I keep saying, the Dragon is very angry. And all the talk about the Fed dropping interest rates and weakening the value of the holdings of this dragon, it will not support this but figure, it is time to strangle the US golden goose and kill it off once and forever. The panic in the world stock markets resume as everyone realises this harsh reality. Bad housing news hits hard but this is the fault of the media spreading fake cheer all over the place just a few days ago. They will paper over this mess and 'save' the markets...again. But they can't do this to infinity despite the boasts. The Dragon will NOT allow this.
*snip*
The fantasies upholding our economy are falling one by one but not fast enough. There is still a belief that the US controls our interest rates and we can cheat the Chinese the same way we cheated the OPEC nations back in the 1980's or the Japanese in the 1990's. But everyone knows we will try to cheat everyone out of their investments and they are now moving to prevent this. OPEC has kept a good grip on the price of oil which continues to be high. Japan has us by the throat via their FOREX reserves and China is now figuring we are finished and is turning attention to destroying Japan's power.

From Market Watch:DAVID WEIDNER'S WRITING ON OFF THE WALL:

Sentiment is growing that Bank of America Corp.'s Kenneth Lewis may have won a place in the pantheon of great Wall Street titans by using his financial clout to help the country avoid economic ruin.
In some circles, Bank of America's (BAC:50.37, -0.50, -1.0%) $2 billion acquisition of a stake in Countrywide Financial Corp. (CFC:19.68, -0.32, -1.6%) is being seen as critical to the end of the Panic of 2007.

HAHAHA. The award for stupidest article this year goes to this story! This story assumes that the Bank of America did this due to smarts and not because Bernanke ordered them to do this if they wanted their overnight rate cut and $38+ billion bail out. Mr. Lewis will join those paragons of pathetic fools, the guys who tried to stop the collapse in 1929.

I was correct about the Bank of America. This bank is frantically running around the planet begging OPEC, China or Russia to buy it, please! The president of the Bank of America certainly will be on a pantheon of fools. Note how Market Watch fondly thought the G7 banking collapse was over and done with...after less than one month of hell? HAHAHA. New readers, do take the time to read these older articles. They are full of mischief.

Stocks went up and everyone who put us in this economic mess now are convinced old Santa Bernanke will follow in Greenspan's footsteps. We will now enter a foolish cycle of sudden rises and sudden falls in interest rates that have no connection with reality. And indeed, I will prove that this has been so since the middle of the Vietnam war when Americans voted for Guns and Butter. We have been dining on this toxic dish nearly all my life. And it is bankrupting us gradually. This slow descent into financial death is now going to speed up if Bernanke pretends inflation is less than 4%.

Just to review today's astonishing news, here is Bloomberg:

The Federal Reserve will probably cut its benchmark interest rate to 4 percent as slowing U.S. economic growth restrains inflation, said Edward Hyman, chairman of International Strategy and Investment Group.
The worst housing slump in 16 years is weakening the economy after the Fed raised borrowing costs 17 times from June 2004 to June last year. A mortgage-market survey conducted by Hyman's firm showed conditions are ``pretty bad'' and ``among the lowest ratings we have ever gotten,'' Hyman said.

``They will start to ease in a measured way, 25 basis points every meeting,'' he said in an interview in New York. ``I think the economy will react favorably to it'' and probably avoid a recession, he said.

Hyman said he sees a ``better economy next year,'' with stocks and Treasury yields rising. Slacker growth this year will ``put inflation aside'' as a concern for the central bank, he said.

What has irritated me for many years now is the belief that spending is our economy. This is false. Only after we deduct our trade deficit, can we see if we 'grew' an economy and the answer is a resounding 'NO'. We are not growing anything except an ocean of red ink. Consumer spending is driving America into a very deep hole. We should NOT be encouraging spending, we should be encouraging SAVINGS. Debt has ballooned and savings has collapsed. Ergo, we need to rebalance them with each other.

Not only were these gnomes indulging in wicked wishful thinking, they were totally wrong in their analysis and therefore, their predictions stank. Why is that?

If wishes were fishes, we would all be swimming in the deep blue sea! These poor saps just wanted to get rich. So they figured, if they talked as if there was no crisis or it was a small mess and not a mega-mess, it would be small. Like little children who spill the milk taking it out of the fridge and then trying to drink directly from the spout, they can't just shove it back into the container. So if they minimize the damage, they can pretend there is no spilt milk. When the house is burning down, we don't want firemen saying, 'I don't see a fire and it is a little fire, oh, the roof is on fire? Well, that means the fire is about to go out. Let's pour on gasoline. That will fix it.'

The Fed poured gasoline on the inflation fires! I knew this. It was painfully obvious back then. Anyone who claims no one knew, is lying.

BREAKING NEWS: BERNANKE WILL DROP INTEREST RATES TO 4%! ARRRRGH!
As expected, markets overseas echoed yesterday's panic on Wall Street. Ever since the .com crash, investors have begged wizards to write new spells that create instant wealth. The wizards used two spells: the 'let's exploit Chinese labor even more' spell and the 'let's create pre-Great Depression investment trusts of various sorts' spells. Both no longer produce easy wealth because the basis of both is piling on debts in the Western empire's populace. The last gasp of this long process of indenture came when Greenspan had to lower interest rates 4% below the real rate of inflation which caused the balloon we now see going bust. Today, I talk about SIV funds, another goofy creature created by these magicians.
*snip*
I was about to publish my story warning about repeating the Greenspan super-low interest rates while pretending there is no inflation when this hit the news wires! And of course, this is PURE INSANITY. And stocks are shooting up! Obviously, Bernanke and his gang surrendered to the financial class who brought this mess down on our heads in the first place.

Now they are safe...until China starts teaching us Mandarin. We are so doomed. But the party will roar on, houses will sell, America's debts will increase to 200% of our GNP instead of 100% and our empire will lose its entire industrial base and anyone saving money will be wiped out, totally.

I knew that was the beginning of the helicopter rescue Bernanke promised Congress. Instead of arresting him, they cheered him. The biggest wastrels on the planet earth is our Congress! They want infinite debt with all their hearts and souls. They are all criminal except for a forlorn handful. I grimly knew that Bernanke would drop rates to 1%. He has hesitated at 2% but itches to drop it further. This, in the teeth of epic inflation. The trick they are now trying is to lower the price of oil. This, they pray, will stop global inflation. A silly idea. They, themselves, spent the last 15 years, claiming that oil prices are not the basis of all domestic inflation.

No indeed. It is cheap money via sub-inflation level lending that fuels inflation. Oil simply rises to the surface, so to speak. It just makes the PAIN of inflation so hideous. And the masses notice this and begin to get somewhat agitated if not downright violent.

(Bloomberg) -- The U.S. Open has one up on Wall Street. It's escaping the credit crunch unscathed.

The U.S. Tennis Association, organizer of New York's Grand Slam tournament, sold out its 84 luxury suites at an average price of $250,000 for the two-week event that ends Sept. 7, even with a $5,000 increase over last year.

Companies including MassMutual Financial Group, International Business Machines Corp. and JPMorgan Chase & Co. pay a total of $50 million a year to sponsor the tournament, according to the USTA. The Open attracted a record 715,587 visitors last year.

``The Open is one of the best corporate events,'' said Stephen Newman, 43, a director at the structured credit products group of Deutsche Bank AG in New York, at JPMorgan's hospitality tent just outside the National Tennis Center. ``You eat, talk and sit next to the person. It's kind of an ideal venue.''

Things are dire and the parties roar onwards. The wealthy financiers are not getting richer but they are certainly NOT poorer. Their income stream has slowed down but they have lots and lots of wealth. And they are out to make deals with other rich people. Golf, horse events and tennis are good for this because the pace is slow, there is no cheering or shouting to interfere with talking business. Making money is social. They make connections which are then exploited. This isn't business at all. This is cronyism a la ruling class nobility style.

The goofy parties these same people threw for our corrupt Senators in Denver are the same sort of game. The rules are harsher at these events so it couldn't be a sit-down dinner. Instead, it had to be 'spoon food' so the caterers made HUGE spoons and loaded these up with food. HAHAHA. Babies eat spoon food. Mama shoves it down the tykes' throats.

ABC news doesn't have to worry about being strangled and then threatened and arrested at the US Open. The Open is not on the radar because it is business, not political. Except it is political but we are not supposed to know this, of course.

Trade winds aren’t blowing in Washington these days, but business is puffing hard in the Mile High City.

Two prominent groups--the Consumer Electronics Association (CEA) and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce--are on a quixotic offensive at this week’s Democratic National Convention, pushing for approval of several free trade agreements stalled by the Democrat-controlled Congress.
*snip*
Undaunted, the CEA, a group whose 2,200-plus members include just about everyone having to do with electronics, from Microsoft (nasdaq: MSFT - news - people ) to Gibson Guitar, wasted no time in getting to work. They want to see trade deals approved so they can export electronics more cheaply to burgeoning markets.

On Monday, several hours before the convention officially opened for business, the group released a survey claiming that 62% of Democrats say they benefit from free trade. CEA is wrapping a seven-week, 28-state bus tour (to end at the GOP Convention in St. Paul, Minn.) called “America Wins with Trade.”

Why aren't workers attacking this silly bus? Heh. At least give it a flat tire. The US workers are still waiting for Santa Claus. Exports are up! Wow! Only the dollar shoots upwards. All our trade deficits since the Floating Currency was launched, have always happened during bad recessions. I suppose a great depression will make it level due to US no longer consuming imports. And this survey: hogwash.

Did the survey say, 'Did you save money buying manufactured goods from China last year?' for example. You bet. If the American public is this suicidal, I would blame the media. The media has been, across the board, totally pro-'free trade'. The NYT and Washington Post are certainly fearfully fond of this Flat Earth style economy! Try getting anyone with an anti-free trade voice access to the business or editorial pages!

(Bloomberg) -- Crude oil headed for its biggest weekly gain in almost two months and natural gas rose as producers evacuated rigs before the arrival of Gustav, forecast to be the largest hurricane in the Gulf of Mexico since Katrina.

Royal Dutch Shell Plc and ConocoPhillips started pulling workers from Gulf of Mexico platforms and cutting production in a region that pumps 26 percent of U.S. oil and 14 percent of gas output. Louisiana officials said they will start evacuating residents today in two counties around New Orleans that house refineries owned by Exxon Mobil Corp. and Valero Energy Corp.

Right on time for the US to try to pick a fight with one of the world's largest energy export countries, Russia. The effects of this inflation will savage the US consumers. And will be more of an excuse for Bernake to drop interest rates to near zero. We seem to have a poor method of learning about cause and effect. I suppose another epic hammering of the US economy might finally drive this lesson home.

The depth and breadth of Asian foreign exchange markets have improved markedly in recent years. Volumes grew rapidly and the diversity of market participants increased. Activity in Asian currencies remained concentrated in onshore markets to a much greater degree than that in major currencies, indicating that foreign exchange controls are having the intended effect of stalling the internationalisation of Asian currencies. At the same time, foreign exchange controls appear to be restraining the development of Asian foreign exchange markets by depressing derivatives trading and fragmenting activity between on- and offshore markets.

The development of foreign exchange markets is closely linked to the participation of foreign investors in local bond markets. The absence of a liquid derivatives market in which to hedge currency risk might deter foreign investment in local currency bonds and, therefore, limit the diversity of bond market participants. Managers of multi-currency bond portfolios typically prefer to hedge the associated currency risk because the volatility of currency returns is greater than the volatility of most bond returns; open currency positions are usually found to
add volatility to bond portfolios without adding much return (Ramaswamy and Scott (2005)). This contrasts with equity portfolios, where the case for hedging is less convincing because the volatility of equity returns is much higher. The link between foreign participation in equity
markets and the development of foreign exchange markets is correspondingly weaker.
*snip*
These same factors were undoubtedly responsible for part of the increase in the turnover of Asian currencies, although their relative importance was less than was the case for the major currency pairs. Certainly algorithmic trading had a much smaller impact on Asian currencies than on internationalised currencies (Wright (2007)). Foreign investment both to and from Asia has increased sharply since 2002, in the process creating direct and indirect demand for foreign exchange. The IMF estimates that in 2007 inflows to the region totalled about $650 billion and outflows $500 billion, for a combined total of $1150 billion (Graph 1). By contrast, in 2004 inflows and outflows summed to less than $500 billion. In addition to foreign direct investment, portfolio investment increased, including purchases of local-currency debt
securities. Leveraged trades concentrated in IDR, INR and PHP, which were popular target currencies over this period (Gyntelberg and Remolona (2007)).

The importance of this chart is the Hong Kong factor: look at how much bigger it is compared to all the others. And the growth rate. It more than quadrupled in less than 3 years. Grew more than 6 times greater in just 6 years. Like all the charts and graphs tracking money and trade, it is shooting upwards. All systems are now so totally out of balance, the parts that are going into the red are plunging into the red at ever-faster rates and the parts growing like the Derivatives Beast, have shot upwards, straight upwards. This divergence is totally unstable and unsustainable. The games being played using currency and interest rate systems that grew out of the crash of the US gold/dollar dual system is getting more and more out of control.

Vast fortunes have been made out of thin air, playing these totally unnecessary and destructive monetary games. The Floating Currency is at fault here. The US experiment in having the world's biggest empire run on fake money has failed. The failure is great and growing worse by the hour. Until we give this notion up, the banking crisis will only worsen. Imagining a bit of tinkering and assistance from the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund coupled with the banks ravaging the US economy 'assisting' will fix this mess is PURE INSANITY.

Note how, in this last year, the Bank of Japan cannot sustain the US entirely by itself. Indeed, first China then Russia ended up funding our banking system. As well as OPEC. And they can't feed the monster further since the US decided this year to run thing totally out of control, in the red. Handing out tax cuts and rebates like so many candy canes.

The rapid growth of turnover and increase in intra-regional trade and investment flows has not lessened the pre-eminence of USD crosses in the trading of Asian currencies. USD was on one side of about 97% of all transactions involving Asian currencies in April 2007 (Table 4 and Graph 6). This share was unchanged from previous surveys. In short, turnover data give no indication of a decline in the use of USD as a vehicle currency among Asian currencies. A vehicle currency is an international medium of exchange. It is the currency through which transactions between other currencies are settled. Currencies which are used as a vehicle are typically those with the lowest transaction costs. Provided that transaction costs are a decreasing function of the volume of transactions, the cost of trading two currencies directly is likely to be greater than the cost of transacting indirectly through a large third currency market (Krugman (1980), Hartman (1998), Rey (2001)).15
Among Asian currencies, the proportion of transactions against currencies other than USD is small and stable. For all currencies except the major ones, turnover by currency pair is available only for onshore trading. To the extent that these data are representative of total turnover, they indicate that the importance of non-USD trades ranges from 7% of IDR and THB turnover to 1% of HKD and PHP turnover (Graph 6). By contrast, 28% of EUR trades, 21% of JPY trades and 10% of AUD trades are against currencies other than the USD. IDR, SGD and THB are the only Asian currencies to have seen the share of non-USD transactions increase perceptibly, from 2% in 2001 to around 7% in 2007.

The graphs are clear: this is yet another system in divergence. One part is 'normal' and not really growing all that much while other parts that are easier to manipulate are shooting upwards at an increasing speed. These sorts of charts are indications of great danger and future pain.

Note how New Zealand, in its attempt at stopping inflation, became a favorite vehicle of the Japanese Carry Trade juggernaut.

The system is fatally flawed. Redesigning this is never mentioned except at the furthest fringes of online, non-mainstream commentary. The childish hope is, this mess can simply roll onwards forever. This is a stupid belief. It is obviously not fixable in the present form. Whoever does fix this properly will be the next ruler of the planet. And it won't be Americans doing this, either.

Obama is elevated on a magic number day of some significance. The media is just ROARING with propaganda aimed at Russia and China. We see clearly the naked fear of the foolish debtor nations of England and the US, trying to intimidate the combined financial powers of Russia and super-giant creditor nation, China. Iran, Israel and a host of smaller nations are riding this firestorm looking out for themselves. As is normal. But the US wants to see the world as good and evil and not as a conglomeration of self-interested nations seeking advantages! Looks like Europe is egging Russia into retaliating by cutting off all energy to Europe. Oil will SHOOT UP if this happens. Ditto, gold. WWIII, here we come.

Researchers in the US say that they have solved the mystery of why flies are so hard to swat.

They think the fly's ability to dodge being hit is due to its fast acting brain and an ability to plan ahead.
High speed, high resolution video recordings revealed the insects quickly work out where a threat is coming from and prepare an escape route.

The research suggests that the best way of swatting a fly is to creep up slowly and aim ahead of its location.
*snip*
Flies put their bodies into pre-flight mode very rapidly - Within 100 milliseconds of spotting the swatter they can position their centre of mass in the right way so that a simple extension of their legs propels them away from any threat.

The scientists found that flies were able to put themselves into this rapid reaction position no matter whether they were grooming, feeding or simply walking.

Flies are obvious smarter than the host of US political classes, the neo cons, the many warmongering media owners, the warmongering US candidates for President: all seem to be able to react to a fly swatter by jumping to it rather than away from it! The deft fly is in stark contrast to the predictable flight pattern of the US political fly. These flies buzz about one's face and are hard to swat away. But if you turn on a blue-light in Russia or China, these flies zip right over and get zapped.

Maybe if they were to merge with a fly like in the movie, The Fly, and have a fly's brain, they might improve their survivability somewhat? Until the Chinese manufacture a giant flyswatter.

Fears are mounting that Russia may restrict oil deliveries to Western Europe over coming days, in response to the threat of EU sanctions and Nato naval actions in the Black Sea.

Any such move would be a dramatic escalation of the Georgia crisis and play havoc with the oil markets.

Reports have begun to circulate in Moscow that Russian oil companies are under orders from the Kremlin to prepare for a supply cut to Germany and Poland through the Druzhba (Friendship) pipeline. It is believed that executives from lead-producer LUKoil have been put on weekend alert.

"They have been told to be ready to cut off supplies as soon as Monday," claimed a high-level business source, speaking to The Daily Telegraph. Any move would be timed to coincide with an emergency EU summit in Brussels, where possible sanctions against Russia are on the agenda.

OK: the EU, UK and US have a huge embargo on Iran and Cuba. Next: Russia. How about China, while we are at it? Indeed, why not boycott much of the third world, too? If we engineer a boycott of China, they will engineer not only a boycott of the G7 West by all their many allies across the planet, they and Russia can also dump trillions of dollars onto global currency markets. Whoo hoo. $500 a barrel oil, here we come!

I am betting this is all just a bunch of people with brains somewhat less responsive to danger than fly brains. They think this way: 'We are collectively the world's biggest empire! We have ruled the earth for 500 years. We are the Ruling Elites of the New World Order! We can command all those stupid people in Russia and China to obey our imperial edicts! HAHAHA. Hey, let's do another sneak attack on Russia like we did so often in the past? HAHAHA. Moscow, here we come! It is only September, after all! We will make it to Moscow by November!'

At this point, some grizzled, old Europeans should wake up from their slumber to remind everyone the stupidity of even talking about this. Europe has lived so long under the US nuclear umbrella, they have forgotten important lessons in life. One is, the nation which one menaces must be weak if one wishes to push them around. Russia emphatically is NOT in this category. Also, wishful thinking is stupid if a huge flyswatter's shadow is right overhead.

Europe can't go to Iran for energy if Russia cuts off Europe. They can't demand the US supply them with fuel. The US is already deep in debt over fuel imports. Indeed, the central banks of the G7 have just moved heaven and hell to strengthen the dying dollar so they can resume the status quo of them exporting to the US much more than the US can export to them. Today, the news boasts about how we have increased exports. But that is OVER now.

The US is trying hysterically to project power on Russia and this is causing Russia to smash Europe to smithereens. Europe could have courted Russia but the reflexes there over the last 500 years has been to defy and be-bother the Russians. Even when alliances are made like the ones during the Napoleonic wars, the allies of Russia would surrender to Napoleon after just one or two battles while leaving the Russian army totally alone and exposed to the united forces of France and its new allies, former allies of Russia!

Each time, Russia had to run away, fast. Then Napoleon and all of Russia's former allies turned on Russia and invaded. This led to the total destruction of Napoleon's Grande Armee and the end of his rule in Europe. Russia knows this history. This makes them very touchy. Russia never surrenders, they retreat. Europe has no where to retreat. So these people must be very careful not to start WWIII. Europe started WWI and WWII. Now, will they want WWIII? One wonders about the sanity of the leaders of Europe. Flies are smarter.

Such action would be seen as economic warfare but Russia has been infuriated by Nato meddling in its "backyard" and threats of punitive measures by the EU. Foreign minister Sergei Lavrov yesterday accused EU diplomats of a "sick imagination".

Armed with $580bn of foreign reserves (the world's third largest), Russia appears willing to risk its reputation as a reliable actor on the international stage in order to pursue geo-strategic ambitions.

"We are not afraid of anything, including the prospect of a Cold War," said President Dmitry Medvedev.

Da, this is Pravda. Russia has little to fear. If the US, EU and UK all want to terminate all trade with Russia, fine, says the Bear. The Bear knows that the World Trade Organization is about as popular as spiders in a jar of flies. They know that the third world will applaud them defying the Flat Earth society of the New World Order G7. The G7 central bankers spend most of last year, berating China about China's banking system and monetary policies before shutting up when the entire banking system of the G7 went under the red ink waters and drowned. Now, sans a working banking system, the G7 nations want economic war with a huge hunk of the world. A hunk that has a huge nuclear arsenal.

Russia suffered a significant setback here on Thursday, as members of a regional security group in which the Kremlin plays an important role offered little support for Moscow’s military action in Georgia.

Dmitri A. Medvedev, the Russian president, came to this Central Asian capital for the annual summit meeting of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, or S.C.O., with the hopes that the six-member group would provide the strong international backing the Kremlin has so far lacked after its incursion into Georgia. Russia has urged other nations to follow its lead and recognize Georgia’s breakaway regions of South Ossetia and Abkhazia as independent states.

Instead, the Shanghai organization, which also includes China, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan, took a neutral stance, urging Russia and Georgia to resolve their differences peacefully.

“The S.C.O. states express grave concern in connection with the recent tensions around the South Ossetia issue and urge the sides to solve existing problems peacefully, through dialogue, and to make efforts facilitating reconciliation and talks,” the summit meeting’s final joint declaration said.

The media in the G7 nations is hilarious. It won't understand what Russia and China are doing. China doesn't have to be belligerent like the US or UK, for example. China is doing the 'good cop' to Russia's 'bad bear cop.' Russia growls and China sighs and says, 'We must resolve this peacefully and I will be very happy to do this for you guys, hahaha.'

China LOVES diplomacy. Without shooting off either their mouths or their guns, they get far more bank for their diplomatic bucks than the G7 gets for their bluster and fury coupled with demands for money, energy supplies and cheap manufactured goods. China is very delighted to be able to call upon the US to be peaceful and NOT go to war all the time. Got that? HAHAHA again. This is so dumb. China stands on the world stage, the guarantor of peace and prosperity while the US squares off with Russia, trying to start WWIII. So who wins this round? NOT THE US.

The Shanghai organization’s leaders did endorse an aspect of Russia’s involvement in the Caucasus, saying it approved of “the active role of Russia in assisting in peace and cooperation in the region.” However, it also underscored the importance of territorial integrity — a statement that could be applied to Georgia’s struggle with its breakaway regions.

HAHAHA. Um, hey! I recall that even in most of my lifetime, Georgia was PART OF RUSSIA! And China didn't make it clear that Georgia was a separate state. They did say that we should use diplomacy and respect spheres of influence. China is very annoyed with the US trying to split up China and also trying to ring both Russia and China with hostile military forces. The Chinese are not endorsing the US Pax system.

Now, let's go to China for the real news. Unlike the propagandists in the West, China cheerfully let us see the actual agreements and proclamations from this Shanghai summit:

(Xinhua) -- Chinese President Hu Jintao, in a keynote speech Thursday at the summit of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) in Tajik capital Dushanbe, made a five-point proposal for joint efforts to develop lasting peace, common prosperity and regional harmony.

STRENGTHENING STRATEGIC CONSULTATION AND POLITICAL MUTUAL TRUST

Efforts should be made to promote mutual support on important issues concerning security and development of member nations in keeping with the SCO Charter and the Treaty on Long-term Good-neighborliness, Friendship and Cooperation, Hu said.

SCO members should make full use of the mechanisms of the Council of Foreign Ministers and the Council of National Coordinators in boosting strategic consultations on vital and sensitive issues that affect the security, stability and development of the member nations and the region, he said.

DEVELOPMENT OF CLOSER SECURITY COOPERATION AND MAINTENANCE OF REGIONAL PEACE

The Chinese president praised the effective cooperation by SCO members on security during the Beijing Olympics and called for continuous cooperation in this regard for similar events to be hosted by the member nations in the future.

Efforts should be made to develop and deepen the various meeting mechanisms such as meetings of Secretaries of Security Councils, Ministers of Defence, Heads of Supreme Courts and Prosecutors General, which have played an important role in safeguarding peace and stability in the region, Hu said.

He called for deepened cooperation among SCO member nations in arresting members of the "three evil forces" (terrorism, separatism and extremism) and criminals involved in other organized transnational crimes such as drug trafficking.

The president also proposed that SCO member nations make joint anti-terror maneuvers a mechanism, and fully implement the anti-drug agreement and the action plan on ensuring international information security.

Noting the advantages of the SCO in fending off impacts from world economic turbulences as its members include major economies, big food and energy producers as well as huge markets, Hu urged SCO members to make effective use of such advantages, continue efforts to facilitate easy flow of trade and investment, continue to select and implement new model projects in transportation, energy and communication, and to enhance financial and agricultural cooperation.

He expressed the hope that SCO members would implement the agreements on customs mutual assistance and strengthen cooperation in customs supervision and personnel training.

The Chinese president pledged credit support on a larger scale to fellow SCO members, saying China, as a responsible partner, will continue consultation with relevant countries in selecting projects and provide the credits it has promised.

Hu said efforts should be made to boost the cooperation among SCO member countries in culture, education, science and technology, sports and tourism, and to promote academic exchanges and exchanges among the young people.

The president called for strengthened cooperation in disaster prevention and relief within the organization, as natural disasters hit the region from time to time, and called for the establishment of a disaster relief center for the organization.

With serious epidemic diseases becoming new threats to the world, Hu said, cooperation among SCO members should be strengthened in the prevention and control of epidemics, transnational medical services, coordination in dealing with public health emergencies, traditional medicine and personnel training.

IMPLEMENTING PRINCIPLE OF OPENING UP AND JOINTLY STRIVING FOR REGIONAL HARMONY

The president noted that it has been a keystone in the SCO's external affairs in recent years to conduct practical cooperation with its observers.

He said China suggests closer cooperation between the organization and its observers, and inviting the observers to participate in inter-departmental cooperation in fields like security, economy and trade, energy, transportation, customs and culture.

China highly evaluates the regulations on the dialogue partnership to be approved by the SCO, and welcomes relevant countries and international organizations, through the dialogue partnership platform, to join efforts with the SCO to promote stability and development in the region.

Sounds like the UN! Sounds...reasonable. When we compare this with the howls from the G-7 powers, it is mild and careful. But behind all this is a strong message: the Shanghai group is consolidating power inside itself. It is a stronger and stronger organization as the US and Europe weakens. It is interested in securing each other's borders. And not one iota of this is from the Europeans or Americans. The G7 nations don't respect borders. They recognized Kosovo in the teeth of disapproval of the entire Shanghai organization. NATO wants to expand and doesn't care if this conflicts with the other nations. To hell with them, sneers Europe and America!

Well, this 'My NATO way or the highway' ideology is very nasty and is totally in the wrong. And the Shanghai proclamation makes this pretty clear. China, unlike the US, doesn't need to bluster. They know they have a firm grip on the economic neck of the US. They are being actually rather kind to us. If we imagine this is a green light to attack Russia, well.....History makes this very clear: many a delusional dictator or hysterical nation has thought this same thing. And ended up dead.

Now for a photo from China, one that has NOT appeared in ANY western propaganda war media reports:

Hey! Who are these dudes?

Why look here: Iran Kitty himself, grinning like the Cheshire cat. And the guy who runs Bagdad. And the President of a tiny part of Afghanistan! HAHAHA. Um, I see some real problems here. Are they in America standing shoulder to shoulder with us as we bark like demented dogs at Russia? Or were they having vodka and tea with Russia and China this week? My god, what does it take to wake people up?

DUSHANBE, Aug. 28 (Xinhua) -- Top leaders of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) agreed Thursday that any attempt to solve problems by merely resorting to force could not work and would only hinder a comprehensive settlement of local conflicts.

A comprehensive solution to existing problems can be found only by taking into account the interests of all parties involved and including them all in the negotiation process rather than isolating any of them, said the leaders in a joint declaration issued at the conclusion of their summit in the Tajik capital.

OK: this is the Chinese summary. Do NOT isolate Russia. Cooperate with Russia. Negotiate with Russia. This didn't displease the Russians at all, by the way. They could turn around and snarl at Europe but note they are not going to war, they are merely telling Europe very curtly, any cessation in commerce will involve the cutting of all energy systems. Simple enough. Europe can ask China to negotiate a peace just like Japan and South Korea ended up asking China to negotiate with North Korea. The US can't negotiate anything anymore because we are stupider than flies.

TEHRAN – President Mahmud Ahmadinejad on Sunday called the Shanghai Cooperation Organization a very important regional and international bloc and said Iran plays a determining role in international developments in its interaction with other countries.

Iran’s participation in the conference at this juncture that the world is “undergoing major changes is very important,” Ahmadinejad told reporters upon his departure for the SCO summit in Dushanbe, Tajikistan.

He expressed hope that the talks in the summit will lead to “useful and expected results for member states, region, and international community.”

The president will hold talks with some summiteers on the sidelines of the conference. “In these meetings bilateral subjects, regional issues and the current situation of world will be reviewed.”

The Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) is an intergovernmental international organization founded in Shanghai on 15 June 2001 by six countries, China, Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan. Its member states cover an area of about three fifths of Eurasia, with a population of 1.455 billion. Its working languages are Chinese and Russian.

Ahmadinejad called the SCO a very important regional pact which is speedily finding its place in the region and the world.

“The domain of the cooperation between these countries in economic, political fields is expanding,” the Iranian president explained.

Oh to be a fly on the wall at these meetings between Iran, Afghanistan, Iraq and Russia! With the Chinese dragon lounging on its golden throne, sharpening its claws with a file. The cat purrs as it rubs against fellow Shi'as, 'Meow, we will win the war with the Infidels!' The bear rolls its eyes.

As the US and Russia sent military vessels to dock at different Georgian ports on Wednesday, Israel continued to tread carefully, issuing no statement regarding Russia's recognition of the breakaway Georgian provinces and - in an apparent show of balance - is planning to send humanitarian aid not only to Georgia, but to North Ossetia as well.
*snip*
Anatoly Yurkov, the charge d'affaires at Russia's embassy in Tel Aviv, told The Jerusalem Post in an interview that Moscow appreciated the balanced position Israel had taken throughout the crisis, as well as its "low profile."

A first meeting was held in the Foreign Ministry on Wednesday to discuss Russia's recognition a day earlier of the breakaway republics of South Ossetia and Abkhazia. The Post has learned that while Israel would most likely decide to continue to recognize Georgia's "territorial integrity," it was unlikely to join the chorus of condemnations of Russia coming from the US, Germany and Britain. It would also certainly not recognize the breakaway republics.

HAHAHA. Back pedal time! Israel is NOT bellowing at Russia. Israel looks after its own needs and affairs. Too bad, Israel won't let us do this. Nope. We have to do what they want. They will TRIANGULATE. All nations do this! This is normal. The US should be doing this with Israel but instead, all our politicians swear fealty to Israel while Israel doesn't swear the slightest fealty to the US. Some ally. Very similar to Japan, by the way. Japan ran off to have a secret meeting with China last fall when the yen suddenly become very strong against the dollar. After this meeting, the yen weakened again and not once has Japan joined the other G7 yapping puppies barking at China about the value of the yuan.

Obama's running mate presents the strategic plan for the next administration

On Aug 27 2008 at the Democratic Convention in Denver, Vice-presidential candidate Sen. Joseph Biden presented the plan for the real war, the war against China, Russia. He repeated the key points pushed by Zbigniew Brzezinski in his obsessive determination to go to the final clash with Russia and Asia.

For Biden, The greates mistake of the Bush administration was its failure "to face the biggest forces shaping this century. The emergence of Russia, China and India's great powers".

What was the "consequence of this neglect"? "Russia challenging… Georgia's freedom." The Obama-Biden administration will repair those criminal mistakes... Barack and I will end that neglect. We will hold Russia accountable."

The wars of the Bush administration were, so to speak the wrong ones.

The new administration will unchain the real war. The war to confront the emergence of Russia, China, India.

The war, the real war will have to be waged in Afghanistan/Pakistan - exactly the area where it will be more disruptive for the feared Russia, China India challenge.

The previous administration was not warmonger enough, according to Biden. The new Democratic administration will increase the number of troops sent in central Asia.

Fools come in many stripes. The GOP has no armlock on stupidity. The DNC is pure New World Order. Americans will troop to Denver Stadium to cheer a bright future. Only it is no future. It is the past. And the past is dead, I say. No one wants to recognize this. The US cannot menace Russia. Russia owns us. Russia owns a hunk of Europe. And China owns everyone. Zbigniew Brzezinski is Polish. He wants Russia reduced to serf status. Poor, weak and helpless so Poland can strut and fret and feel powerful. This is stupid. Poland always gets run over by Russia whenever European leaders do sneak attacks on Russia. So Poland should be playing nice with Russia, not egging on yet another world war.

(Reuters) - There is no question of launching "all-out war" against Russia, Foreign Secretary David Miliband said on Thursday, while condemning Moscow's "invasion" of Georgia.

Miliband, asked whether NATO would go to war against Moscow if it were to attack a neighbouring country or ally again, said: "We don't want all-out war with Russia ... There's no question of launching an all-out war against Russia."

NATO is committed to the principle that an attack against one or several members would be considered an attack against all, and to defending its members against aggression. Georgia is not a NATO member but it has ambitions to join.

NATO was not an "offensive" alliance, Miliband told BBC Radio.

Lord, that last statement is pure insanity. NATO has invaded several countries, one of which was disarmed by the United Nations so the US attack could proceed without incident. The UN is dead. Saddam is dead. But Putin and Hu are very much alive and kicking our asses. NATO doesn't want an all-out war with Russia. They just want a PARTIAL war with Russia!

Alas, History is very stern: all wars do what they do. Small wars can swiftly turn into massive World Wars. When Saddam was induced into attacking a corner of Iran so he could steal Iran's oil wells, this turned into a major war between the two countries. This, in turn, cause world oil prices to shoot to the heavens. This, in turn, destroyed the US economy, fueled hyper-inflation and gave us all great, great grief. If we knew it would send oil to over $150 a barrel in today's inflationary dollars, we would have begged Saddam to NOT invade Iran!

But we did the opposite. China has made it very clear: the West can negotiation and stop the violent threats and rhetoric or they will be facing a huge coalition in the UN led by China, the third world, South America, a host of nations condemning the war the G7 seem stupidly to launch.

As the US celebrates the two conventional conventions which feature crushing abuse of demonstrators and even the highest levels of the media, the situation in the Black Sea continues to broil. The grossly over-extended US empire is pretending to muscle everyone even as the chief rivals play games of cat and mouse with our over-muscled but physically weak empire. Like a weight lifter about to die of a heart attack, the US flexes its military muscles while everyone laughs behind their hands, pointing at our red, puffed up visage.

(AFP) — Russia won support Thursday from China and Central Asian states in its standoff with the West over the Georgia conflict as the European Union said it was weighing sanctions against Moscow.

Russia's President Dmitry Medvedev said he hoped the "united position" of a summit of Central Asian nations would "serve as a serious signal to those who try to turn black into white".
*snip*
China, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan voiced support for Russia's "active role" in resolving the conflict in Georgia, according to the draft of a joint statement released by the Kremlin.
Leaders from the countries met in the Tajik capital of Dushanbe as the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation, a regional group set up in 2001 to counter NATO influence in the strategic Central Asia region.

One thing about Agence France Presse is they are French and therefore, not all that prone to cough up propaganda. So if they say that Russia has support from China and others, Russia has this. Some commentators this month have suggested that China would not support Russia in this matter because China sensibly doesn't want to be broken up into shattered shards like Russia. Russia, we better remember, become this way due to going bankrupt! The US, incidentally and obviously is going bankrupt, too.

The US has heartily endorsed the break up of all other nations since WWI. We went from fighting our most vicious war in 1860 over the concept of there being no right to break up the United States into individual confederations to proposing all other nations be chopped apart according to language, religious or ideological lines! NO nation is EVER consistent in philosophy. All follow just one rule: do as you wish whenever you want.

Since this is the only rule, it is very important to figure out what this means: all alliances are temporary. And all alliances are an equal danger as well as strength. Alliances can lead to massive wars. Or prevent them. Depending on the skills, sensibilities and desires of the leaders.

CNN) -- Russia's hopes of winning international support for its actions in Georgia were dashed Thursday, when China and other Asian nations expressed concern about mounting tensions in the region. The joint declaration from the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, or SCO, which includes China, Russia, Tajikistan, Kyrgystan, Kazakhstan, and Uzbekistan, said the countries hoped any further conflict could be resolved peacefully through dialogue.

The Chinese have this ritual: they want everything to be resolved via diplomacy. As well they might. Two of the world's greatest diplomats are Hu and Wen. Both go about the planet, making deals, setting up systems and in general, building a huge imperial complex based on joint interests and money. For the Chinese have something the US doesn't have: money. Credit. Power. The US goes about the planet waving guns like some desperado because the US has no more power except the gun. Like any street thug with no job, we have a pug on a leash with spikes on its collar and we trundle about, threatening little old ladies trying to cash their Social Security checks. Or beating up little Palestinian or Iraqi boys for throwing rocks at us.

CNN has to lie to Americans because it pays to lie. If the truth were told, we would not be seeing this election. This election is all about projecting US power. And what is being projected is the image of a clown. The US should hope that Obama wins simply because he has some small talents in the realm of being civilized. He knows how to eat without spitting out food while talking with his mouth full like Bush tends to do. Or throwing up in the Japanese prime minister's lap like Bush Sr. He doesn't talk funny or sing silly songs about bombing innocent civilians. So he isn't a monkey or a chipmunk waving a wooden sword. McCain's bellicosity is exactly what the Chinese want. The two top diplomats of the world can point to this blustering old dottering man who can't remember his home address and say, 'We must disarm him.'

Since Israel, Europe and the US has made disarmament the #1 topic in international politics, I would think the US would happily disarm once the Chinese request this at the UN. And Russia is already going to the UN to demand NATO disarm. And morally, Russia is in the right. Europe and America refused to protect Russian peacekeepers from a sneak attack, after all. Europe and America refused to condemn this sneak attack. Europe and the US have armed and supported a country that has attacked peacekeepers. This is so embarrassing, watching the bellicosity in the US media whip up outrage in America while being totally in the moral wrong here.

(Reuters) - The Group of Seven rich nations Wednesday issued a stinging condemnation of Russia's decision to recognize Georgia's breakaway regions of South Ossetia and Abkhazia, the United States said.

The G7 is a federation of powers which have latched onto the US military machine after WWII and taken it over. Germany and Japan went from defeat to total victory over the US in a mere 50 years. By 1980, both nations had financial control over the US. The US negotiated one deal after another to fix this and failed. Both nations fund US military power via loans which are climbing rapidly in cost. Paying the interest on these loans which were run up so we can patrol Europe and Asia on behalf of Germany and Japan is now bankrupting the US. And are so large, these two victors in the 20th century struggle for global dominance cannot fund the US anymore.

So Russia and China, the two nations that lost the Cold War's struggle for power are now the ones mainly funding US spending on military dominance. Thus, these two losers are changed magically into winners of the Cold War. The US is astonishingly trying to restart the Cold War while being owned by the same powers that lost the previous Cold War. This is sheer insanity. The G7 are no longer 'rich' nations. They have in their group, one rather poor nation: the United States of America. And since this poor nation is the centerpiece of the G7 powers, it is the key to destroying the entire G7's powers. The US goes under financially, both Germany and Japan will be exposed to the full fury of two great powers that HATE them with a passion and who were NOT paid reparations for WWII when Germany and Japan ravaged both China and Russia!

And if that isn’t unnerving enough, President Bush has decided to dispatch Vice President Dick Cheney, that master of diplomacy, to the region.

Awash in oil wealth and giddy after crushing tiny Georgia, Russia’s leaders are striking back at real and imagined humiliations. The West’s failure to fully marshal its leverage is painful to watch. But Russia also has a lot to lose. Moscow’s decision to recognize South Ossetia and Abkhazia will only harden battle lines and sow further regional instability.
*snip*
We know some in the Kremlin don’t care if ties with the West are broken. Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, the dark hand behind Russia’s aggression, blustered this week that Russia would be better off if it didn’t join the World Trade Organization.

HAHAHA. The WTO is hated across the planet. Before the US turned into a total Soviet police state, we used to have huge, lively anti-WTO demonstrations. All over the place, whenever the WTO tries to meet, there are riots! The WTO has to now meet in isolated resorts surrounded by heavy military installations. Russia defying this organization makes Russia more, not less, popular with the global masses! China doesn't mind using the WTO to colonize the US. Japan loves the WTO because they have a million tricks up their kimono sleeves for restricting global penetration of Fortress Japan. This comedy of errors should be terminated as fast as possible by the US. For of all nations, the US has been ravaged the worse thanks to the WTO.

It is our real enemy. It is why we are now dying as a sovereign power and are now going bankrupt.

A blustering visit from Mr. Cheney would also make it far easier for the Europeans to avoid doing what they need to do: send their own clear message to Moscow that there will be no business as usual. That does not mean completely isolating Russia. But when the Europeans meet next week, they should agree to put on hold a trade and security deal with Moscow so long as it continues to occupy Georgia and threaten its neighbors.

Ties between Russia and the West are now the worst in a generation. It will take toughness and subtlety to ensure they do not lock into a permanent confrontation — not more bluster from anyone.

This blustering, stupid editorialist doesn't seem to clearly understand that if Europe yells at Russia and demands Russia stop trading, Russia will stop. Then Germany and France can freeze to death and watch all their factories close down due to lack of energy. As Putin might say, 'Make my day.'

What the NYT wishes to imagine is, Europe can pick and choose which things they want from Russia. Then they can punish Russia while not cutting off their own noses. But Russia will cut off their noses! Russia has no interest in selling energy while being punished. Tit for tat. As I said at the beginning of this analysis, in international politics, the rule is, leaders do whatever they want, when they want. Treaties or no treaties. Punishments or no punishments. If they happen to be getting along, they get along. When this ceases, they go off and do whatever they want.

The US wanted both oil and to stop Saddam from funding the Palestinian uprising against Israeli invaders in the Middle East. So we cooked up charges, disarmed Saddam and then lunged at his throat. Now, we squat there, dying every day, going bankrupt rapidly, trying to strongarm Iraq's Shia government into some sort of treaty that will lock them in as our servants and weaken them as much as humanly possible. But this is a total failure. The longer this process takes, the stronger the Shi'a become and the weaker the US becomes. Time is of the essence for the US. And the Iranians know this. So they are not eager to see the US stop negotiations. They want this to continue forever or until the US collapses.

Europe needs Iraqi and Iranian oil. Europe wants this oil under the aegis of the US military power. Europe has no means of securing this precious oil without the US. But the US hates the Shi'ites, the US wants to weaken them so they can't support their own people in Lebanon. The US is all mixed up in its goals because the #1 goal here is actually to secure Israel, not the US nor Europe. Since this is a totally contradictory goal, this means the mode of operation as well as the diplomatic goals are utterly at odds with each other and therefore, unattainable.

Now to go to Antiwar.com, a great web page for all information about the US thrashing about the planet, uselessly:

One would think that a coast guard vessel has a fairly straight forward task: patrol the littoral waters surrounding the country.

However, it appears that the US coast guard, like the national guard, has a history of being used in imperial warfare. For instance, the USCGC Dallas, the largest coast guard ship currently in commission, has just made a pit stop in Georgia. Not the Peach State, but rather in the Black Sea near the Caucasus.

Here is my reply to the many military personnel who posted proud answers to this charge that the US military is NOT protecting the US but is scattered about the planet:

2008-08-28 04:51:08
9/11 showed the world, the US military and other organizations is so focused on patrolling the entire planet, no one is protecting America. After 9/11, our desire to patrol the entire planet has done two things: left the US utterly unprotected and bankrupted our government.

The dilly-dallying about the planet with our forces scattered to the winds is the usual thrashing around of a dying empire. When England went bankrupt during WWI, they continued to expand their empire afterwards [including a disastrous war in Iraq] and they scattered their forces even more across the planet.

All this, knowing that their home base was totally vulnerable to a frontal attack. So of course, this happened a second time. Unlike WWI, in WWII, the attacks were directly on England and England nearly collapsed. As it was, the rolling up of the English empire was so easy, soldiers on bicycles in Asia were able to overwhelm the bedraggled last strands of the British Empire in Southeast Asia.

The US is using up all available tools at hand in a wild, last attempt at securing our empire. We foolishly imagine, if we have token troops in 130 different countries, this will control all potential rivals. To do this, we have handed over our sovereignty to dire rivals who have only one goal: the termination of the US empire.

China and Russia hold very significant amounts of US debts. Both did this thanks to wild US misspending on global domination systems. Both intend to use this as a way of toppling US international power. The fact is that the US ships are madly trying to muscle so many distant shores has weakened US power which cannot be brought into action anywhere due to this. If we send the vast majority of our fleets into three cul de sac water systems surrounded by hostile powers, we should not be surprised if we lose all our fleets at once.

The truth is, Russia and China can sink our entire navy in a flash if our navy is trapped in these dead-end seas. In WWII, Britain was very lucky that Germany didn’t have enough subs to sink all British ships in the Mediterranean. Since the US was supplying Britain, the Germans concentrated on the North Atlantic instead. Otherwise, the Brits would have had virtually no navy outside of the one attached to the US empire.

The US foreign policy fools who have driven the US right off the cliff should be arrested for treason. Sending our local as well as overseas navies to these obvious traps is treason. Even if nothing happens to them—this time—the trap is still set, jaws opened wide. This level of irresponsibility is as great as the 9/11 levels. The Pentagon and White House sat idle during a long multi-level attack because they wanted it to succeed.

They intend to do this again with our navies as ‘bait’ to Russia and China. Then they get the Cold War back. But this is stupid because it will bring us WWIII instead.

Are we entering the age of the autocrat? It's certainly tempting to think so after watching Russia's recent clobbering of Georgia. That invasion clearly marks a new phase in world politics, but it's a mistake to think that the future belongs to Russian strongman Vladimir Putin and his fellow despots.

I'm particularly interested in trying to discern the shape of the new international moment, because I wrote an essay in 1989 entitled "The End of History?" It argued that liberal ideas had conclusively triumphed at the end of the Cold War. But today, U.S. dominance of the world system is slipping; Russia and China offer themselves as models, showing off a combination of authoritarianism and modernization that offers a clear challenge to liberal democracy. They seem to have plenty of imitators.
*snip*
China's problem today, unlike in imperial times, is that it doesn't have a well-articulated sense of what the country represents in the larger world. The so-called Beijing Consensus, which mixes authoritarian government with market economics, is popular in many developing countries, and with good reason: Under Beijing's rules, national leaders can just do business and make money, without being hectored about democracy and human rights.

At the Democratic Convention, an ABC reporter was manhandled, nearly choked to death and arrested by Denver goons who claimed, he had no right to stand on a sidewalk and film all the fat cats who were hosting parties for the corrupt and evil Senators. So much for US propaganda about how evil China was for not allowing pro-destruction of China demonstrators! In the US, even the act of gathering the news about the Real Rulers is verboten. Anyone doing this is hammered into the ground. The DNC didn't condemn this any more than Kerry's refusal to stop the repeated tasering of a student in Florida when he asked 'an interesting question.'

Pelosi recently had a reporter for public radio arrested for asking HER an 'interesting question.' She didn't have him tasered, too. But I bet, she wanted to do this. We no longer have a republic or a democracy. We have an autocracy. So why is the Washington Post wasting space with the blathering about how China and Russia are not like the free US where reporters are beaten to death for asking interesting questions....ah. This sort of bloody stupidity is great propaganda for anyone who has zero awareness of the real news which is the vast majority of Americans.

I have been increasingly horrified by the swift loss of civil rights in this nation. We see the beginnings of the Soviet state style of rule that a bankrupt government needs to impose marshal law on angry masses. The average America is totally unable to understand or survive a collapse of our economic systems. Scattered all over, we don't even have the strength of extended families to protect ourselves from the ravages of economic destruction. We can't withdraw into our own villages since we are 'atomized' across the land.

While researching financial matters, I came across this old article from the last major cycle of imperial destruction:

"We have not forgotten the wound on our eastern flank and the lopping off of the Vistula district, nor have we forgotten how shabbily Woodrow Wilson urged the unnatural severing of East Prussia from the Fatherland. . . . We intend, of course, to fulfill our European mission without going to war, but, on the contrary, only soldiers with front experience can liquidate the War."

So spoke blunt Gottfried R. Treviranus, Minister Without Portfolio in the cabinet of Chancellor Bruning, to cheering crowds assembled last week before the steps of the Reichstag. Six hours later the protests started, piled up in wave upon wave of outraged French and Polish anguish to a holocaust of denunciation.
*snip*
Poland, jealous of every move against her dearly guarded corridor to the sea, was just as vociferous. Foreign Minister August Zaleski made formal protest to Berlin.

"Poland is set!" screamed the Gazeta Polska, "and ready to defend her frontiers to the last drop of blood!"
Startled by the speed and strength of these attacks, Dr. Treviranus insisted last week that he had been misunderstood, repeated one phrase in his speech which had not been quoted in French and Polish papers:
"The way of peaceful understanding is the only possible one for ending the wrong of drawing up boundaries as they are now."

This is a cold reminder of what happens to empires playing the ethnic card when sparring with other empires. England and France wanted ethnic identity in Eastern Europe but NOT in Ireland or southern France, just for example. So they carved up Germany and Austria but took over or extended their own powers of rule in distant lands like Southeast Asia, Africa, the Pacific or other areas. Overextended and bankrupt, owing billions to the US, both England and France were utterly incapable of resisting a resurgent Germany that basically rolled right over Poland as well as all of Europe in less than 2 years of warfare.

I have to go out and fix a roof today so this is a quick story: Mr. Sunshine is an economist who says some very dumb things at Seeking Alpha. I and other readers tear him apart. Fun times, go enjoy. Also, we notice that our anger about the ending of the M3 data was correct, the news about the global monetary system still shows the collapse continuing. Even as commodity inflation fades temporarily, the underlying trade mess still continues. The US saw its trade deficit fall but this was 100% due to the weakening dollar. The cost of this fall in imports was very, very high: we paid through the nose for oil. Everyone in America is significantly poorer thanks to this.

First, Mr. Sunshine Man attacks the heros who struggle to keep the M3 data going despite the criminals at the Federal Reserve hiding this information:

Many so-called “prominent economists” in the United States and Great Britain were late to understand Federal Reserve monetary policy and are now covering up their past incompetence by making up data and presenting it at as both authoritative and accurate. The issues surrounding the destruction of money supply as result of the credit crisis were obvious but often ignored during the second half of 2007 and the first half of 2008.

Despite having the Great Depression’s monetary history as a guide, many economists that were critical of Federal Reserve policy in the international media didn’t bother to think before talking. These economists didn’t understand that the Federal Reserve’s emergency liquidity facilities were designed to prevent a wholesale destruction of the monetary base and that once the money supply was stabilized, the Federal Reserve could resume its current hawkish stance.

Here is my reply:

This is Elaine Supkis of Culture of Life News:

I was one of the many people who protested very loudly when the Fed capriciously suddenly said, no one needed to see M3 numbers anymore. A number of central banks still publish this data but not the privately-owned Federal Reserve!

When the Fed made that announcement back when we were at the very peak of the housing bubble, oil inflation was just beginning to really take off. I figured, this M3 data was being terminated because Bernanke and Greenspan, as one left office and the other entered, knew that we were on the eve of global hyper-inflation.

And I was right. Immediately, inflation took wing and shot upwards. This is very significant because it happened precisely when asset values of things like properties, etc. began to lose value, rapidly.

A classic situation that M3 helps track was this rapid wealth destruction in assets running during a raging rise in commodities. We saw this in the past like in the stagflation years of the seventies, for example.

We know from history, the only cure for this is to raise interest rates. Instead, now we are 'driving blind' and the first wave of hyper-inflation has hit shore and the next is definitely on the horizon. Until the Fed and the Bank of Japan cease making loans below the rate of real inflation of COMMODITIES, these future inflation waves will destroy the value of global trade monetary icons. Already, the world's #2 economy, Japan, has killed its currency to the point, even the Japanese don't want it anymore.

Now, the #1 economy has set out to do the same. The frightened Europeans are trying desperately to up the value of the dollar but they will fail. Not with both China and Japan, the #2 and #3 economies, flooding Europe with exports or blocking European exports to third parties like the OPEC nations, etc.

For ultimately, none of this is really about monetarist values. It is all about TRADE. With 'free trade' we have a system of 'beggar your neighbor' trade that is extremely hostile and dangerous. The only way the US can get out of this trap is to install tariffs and barriers. This is because we are the world's #1 trade deficit nation. This is utterly unsustainable.

And when we look at debt, trade and monetary policies all at once, we then understand, the 'money creation' business is just a symptom, not a cause.

Also, where does Seeking Alpha find these 'economists'? Mr. Sunshine is pretty close to the bottom of the pit where these poor guys live.

I didn't mention Mr. Sunshine's attacks on the good people who try their best to keep us informed about the M3 information. Other outraged readers tore into him about that. And they are right and Sunshine is a rain cloud. Or cloud coo coo land.

The news this morning clearly shows that the continuing mess is due to the US trying to weaken the dollar so we can increase exports and dampen US appetites for imports. This is a cruel way of balancing trade. Tariffs feed Federal revenues. Whereas a weak dollar kills the consumer and the savers at the same time. We get inflation in import prices while getting no relief with taxes! Our sensible ancestors understood this very clearly. The deflation cycle of the Great Depression spooked economists and politicians to the point, they misunderstood what happened back then and thought, the way to avoid depressions is to have no barriers to trade. This childish ideal is proving to be very bad for the workers in the US which as become the main destination of global exports.

(Bloomberg) -- Orders for U.S. durable goods unexpectedly increased in July, indicating growing demand from abroad is still helping companies weather a slump in consumer spending.

The 1.3 percent gain in bookings of goods meant to last several years matched the previous month's rise, which was larger than previously estimated, the Commerce Department said today in Washington. Excluding transportation equipment, orders climbed 0.7 percent after a 2.4 percent increase a month earlier.

Sales overseas have helped U.S. factories withstand the three-year housing slump and tighter lending rules that have caused Americans to cut back. Still, economies abroad are now also weakening, signaling companies will not be able to count on sustained gains in exports.

The ICE raids show that US manufacturing has coped with inflation by bringing in a hoard of illegal aliens and undercutting US working wages. This is why the US has seen no worker agitation for higher wages. The illegal aliens have to be silent or else they get deported. This is the cure for inflation. Like Japan, depressing wages. This depresses the local economy and it is spreading. As the dollar weakens, this hammers worker's buying power and causes all assets purchased by workers to decline in value even as the things needed for survival, food, fuel and medicine, shoot upwards.

This causes a 'hand to mouth' economy to develop and this is a third world economy. Taxes are cut but this worsens the credit rating and the need to pay interest to foreign powers makes the trade situation worse, not better. The cruel methods of dealing with trade imbalances rests ENTIRELY on beggaring the working class.

(Bloomberg) -- Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta President Dennis Lockhart said the central bank's interest-rate stance is ``consistent'' with slowing inflation, while signaling readiness to raise borrowing costs if needed.

``Current Fed policy is consistent with an easing in overall inflation given the dynamics of the economy,'' Lockhart said in the prepared text of a speech today in Atlanta. At the same time, ``I am mindful of today's elevated risks and am prepared at any point to change tactics to ensure inflation expectations do not become unanchored.''

Policy makers agreed on Aug. 5 that their next change in rates would be an increase, according to minutes of their meeting released yesterday. A number of officials concerned at rising risks of inflation favored an increase earlier than traders expected, the minutes also showed. Lockhart will vote on rates for the first time in 2009.

The first wave of inflation has passed. The second is on the horizon. We see it pretty clearly. The only tool left to stop this commodity wave is for the US workers to be totally destroyed like the Japanese workers. This takes us to the election this year:

(Bloomberg) -- The U.S. is facing the worst financial crisis since the Depression. You would never know that from the Democrats' platform in Denver or its Republican counterpart, or from listening to Barack Obama or John McCain.

While both candidates have bemoaned the ravages of the subprime crisis, they have yet to spell out steps for tackling it, such as using taxpayer money to shore up banks and housing.

``They fail to come to grips with the biggest danger that is going to hit the next president in his first few months in office: the crisis in the capital markets,'' said David Smick, a Washington-based consultant to hedge funds and author of ``The World is Curved: Hidden Dangers to the Global Economy.''

The born again Christians want no abortions. This way, women will be forced to have children while having declining incomes! Japan's workforce has nearly totally ceased to reproduce itself and is now declining, rapidly. The US will do the same. Neither candidate talks about Japan's policies. This is peculiar but of course, I must be the only other human on earth who is tracking Japan's economy and analyzing its bad effects! I worry much more about Japan than China for obvious reasons: we are imitating the worst aspects of Japan's 'economic miracle'. China is very dynamic. The workforce, quite restive.

Japan is quiet. Dying. Like the older US industrial workforce, the workers there accept all the hammer blows that make Toyota and Sony stronger and themselves, poorer. I am very alarmed about this and seeing unions give up the ghost here is scary. The unions support Obama but he is not a union supporter, himself. He is part of the New World Order. The New World Order is nervous about McCain because his literally insane.

Reagan was a happy, friendly senile old man. McCain is a bitter, angry, ill tempered senile old man. And this is the only major difference between the two AIPAC candidates. But then, analyzing things so they make sense is very difficult. Since tariffs have been removed from the table, it is nearly hopeless, trying to fix things. We can't fix things unless we first understand what is going on. And to do this, we must look into history. And to understand history, we have to stop accepting old chestnuts of wisdom and look for walnuts of intellectual understanding from a new perspective.

We get to bounce back and forwards in history as we try to figure out what is going on. The echos from 1930 is very strong indeed. Pensions are vanishing in England and the US. Japan is on a buying binge that has shot up 91% and they are buying up US systems. Once again, I explain how some gold bug or silver bug websites give very, very bad advice. Buyers, please beware! Ulrich, an accountant, sued the IRS and won. Over 100 lenders this year have been forced to fold their tents and go bankrupt. Housing prices are still down but not dropping like a rock. They are just dropping sort of like in 1930. People forget, the Great Depression was supposed to be very short and not all that painful. The banking system took 3 long years to collapse. We barely are entering the second year of this present collapse. We don't hit bottom for another 24 months or more! And ICE makes another mass arrest, setting records. Seems much of our industrial workforce has been displaced by illegal aliens.

After deliriously rising on the news that the big housing developers managed to sell new houses last month without inquiring as to how they did this deed, the markets are now in danger of fainting away due to the very bad news that existing housing is collapsing in value and sales. And the happiness in Japan will also vanish as they contemplate the possibility their number one chumps, the US, will go under. And everyone wonders if the magician, Bernanke, can pull a hell hound out of his hat instead of a skunk.
*snip*
I'm angry that the goofs who run our media and our government both adamantly refuse to admit the big boom/bubble built by Greenspan in 2002 with his fake 1% interest rates has collapsed. It fell apart way back in late 2005, for crying out loud! The remaining sectors collapsed one by one over the last 2 years. As the Fed and the investing classes frantically built new financial structures or designed new hedges or new dikes and barriers, they all fell down. So now the bankers and the top officials running the world's economies...oh, leaving out China, of course....are all frantically trying to use backhoes and bulldozers pushing huge mountains, historically huge mountains of money in a frantic attempt to turn the tide.

Again, it pays to read past postings here. Older readers might remember this stuff. But even I forget what I wrote in the past. Must be getting old! Anyway, the accuracy of these postings is most satisfying. Now, on to the present. England and America are doing the same thing: reducing workers to third world status. This, the rulers imagine, will fix inflation and recapitalize their own bank accounts.

Employers are rushing to close final-salary schemes to new members to escape the extra cost of their employees' increasing longevity.

A record low of 17 per cent of British final-salary schemes are still open to new applicants, down from 28 per cent last year, according to research by Aon Consulting. In 2003 about half of final-salary pension schemes - which offer guaranteed pensions regardless of market movements - were still available to new employees.

Companies are moving away from final-salary schemes, also known as defined benefit schemes, because of tighter regulation, the present volatile market conditions that have depleted many pension schemes, people living longer and fears over future developments in accounting for pensions.

Across the entire 'First World' universe which is mainly the NATO countries, the US, Canada and Japan, are all dropping worker's wages, dropping pension funds and dropping all sorts of civilized things. Soon, workers get to return to the Victorian model universe of capitalism, red in tooth and claw. The systems are so underfunded and loaded down with debt, the only way to capitalize left is to destroy wages by undercutting the workforce. If everyone works real cheap and gets no retirement, this means more money will flow into offshore investment bank accounts where it can't be taxed! See, isn't that a glorious future for the first world nations' workforces?

Across this toxic, blasted landscape, the governments run lotteries. Winners get to live like kings. Everyone has an equal but one in a 20 million chance to strike it rich. Lady Luck gets to decide who lives in a McMansion or who dies in a cardboard box. This is highly popular with people. Everyone thinks, they will be the winner. So this supports unfair taxation that treats the poor like the rich: both get to pay the same percentage. But one gets to get richer while the other gets even poorer. This is why all third world system feature extremely rich people paying little to no taxes and a great mass of poor peasants who barely can stay alive! Why the US wants this baffles me. I suppose it is human nature: people hate democracy and sharing. They think, if only they can win the lottery, they can be the rulers, too! No lottery winner ever joins the ruling class, by the way. The winnings get frittered away. Seldom does it end up in some capitalist venture that makes the wealth grow. And all the rich rulers know that if you spoil the kids, they turn rotten.

Lottery winners tend to want to spoil their families. None of this stern, 'You better make it on your own before I give you a penny' stuff I grew up hearing. The fact is, even lottery winning peasants are basically socialists if they could confine this socialism to their own ethnic/religious group. It is the business of sharing it with rival groups that irritate so many. This is part of the 'fracturing empires' business: everyone wants to be king of the hill even if it is a mole hill or worse, a red ant hill.

(Bloomberg) -- Newmont Mining Corp. Chief Executive Officer Richard T. O'Brien said gold prices ``probably'' will reach records in the next year as investors seek a buffer against accelerating inflation.

Gold has declined 20 percent since credit market losses and a weak dollar drove the price to an all-time high of $1,033.90 an ounce in March. Investor interest in the metal may be revived as inflation reduces the value of other assets, O'Brien said yesterday in an interview from Denver, where the company is based. Newmont is the largest U.S. gold producer.

O'Brien's view that inflation will accelerate contradicts that of Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke, who said last week that price increases may slow later this year as oil declines and the dollar strengthens. Higher energy and food costs pushed consumer prices to the steepest gain in 17 years in the 12 months through July, government figures show.

One of the features of a true global economic meltdown is how nothing works. Absolutely nothing works. Everyone hopes for a pot of gold at the end of a rainbow. Everyone hopes to win the lottery. Everyone hopes to marry a rich heiress or sugar daddy. Everyone runs around, looking under the furniture or behind the sofa for spare change. Everyone prays that Santa Claus is real. I lost a number of readers when I suggested that gold is a mere commodity like so many others. Hell, paper money is now a commodity! And all of these are manipulated in surprising ways. Namely, a gaggle of wild investors are rushing from one life raft to another. As each one gets overloaded with a host of hedge funds, investors, pension funds, OPEC princes, etc.----it sinks! This is why all economic collapses feature not one but many multiple bubbles.

The bears and bulls wear themselves out by this constant thrashing about by all these frightened investors. This is part of the destruction of wealth process unleashed by the dire Goddesses. These beings are Lady Luck, Inflation and Depression. All of them are impossible to stop. Only when they are done and Libra rises up from Her starry throne, do these three Gorgons return to their Isle of the Setting Sun. Libra picks up the pieces and restarts the systems. Sometimes, it takes humans a thousand years to work out how to do things again. Money vanishes. And is totally gone. This is a very real possibility in our futures: if we experiment with WWIII nuclear hell, this will happen again. Several times, the ability to read and write, do numbers greater than a dozen, to do simple civilized tasks, collapses.

Gold might go up. But this is predicated on people having paper money with which to buy gold. I don't see too many people using gold to buy cars, for example. It has to be translated into paper money. The FX markets were sold to gullible savers as a guaranteed market for increasing the value of one's savings, for example. This, too, has been thrashing about and destroying wealth just like everything else. I look around and see fewer and fewer systems capable of an easy return.

Oil, by the way, has ceased declining. It is bouncing about at the $111-120 range. Ditto, gold has stabilized. If the world economy continues to shrink and I expect it to shrink, both will stay at this level or decline, too. The inflation/deflation whipsaw will continue to ravage various markets. Just like it did in the 1930s.

Johnny Carson might have quipped about the economy, "Inflation is so bad these days… that pennies are now selling on the street for two cents."

This joke may not be all that funny, even with the great Carnac delivering it, but it does have the underpinnings of good comedy: an absurd story based on a kernel of truth.

Old pennies are routinely traded at premium prices, sometimes twice or more their face value. This is not because they are rare or precious — they were minted by the tens of billions — but simply because they are worth more as metal than as money.

Because of this "bullion premium" on the older pennies, a small cadre of penny hoarders is actively searching through America's stock of pennies to pick out these undervalued coins.

Casual observers are not struck with a deep sense of economic import when they learn about penny hoarding. Neither are most economists. The government dealt with the problem by simply making the coin out of a much cheaper metal: zinc. So what's the big deal?

The government would LOVE to get rid of the penny. This is a fancy way of saying, 'Let's get rid of one of the zeros'. Zeros have this habit of going to infinity. So if we whack them off at the lower end, all will be well, eh? As a penny pincher, I always get a good grip on my pennies. And they do count. And accumulate. Buy ten items at 99¢ @, we get 10¢ in savings. This is one tenth a dollar. The US can't keep up the fiction of having any hard currencies if we let inflation roar out of control. Most nations solve this by dissolving their currency values totally and starting all over again. The Germans did this in an epic way and are very nervous about repeating this. South American southern European nations do this like clockwork and shrug it off. But now, the southern Europeans are being trapped in the paranoid German system. Heh. They hate it.

When investors saw gold get bashed after the Fannie Mae debacle it was the last straw. They came to the conclusion that there is nothing that can happen that will make gold work. While this is understandable it is also very regrettable because the very forces that caused this to occur are probably the same that are sitting back with bids under the market price to accumulate at giveaway prices. The commercial shorts on the COMEX can now have a field day covering their massive short positions. It is time for investors to hold tight and add to their positions and to speak out against the interventions. As Ed Steer of the GATA clan has said, ‘there are no markets now, only interventions”. If you are willing to give up your only protection in the face of this you are announcing your willingness to be a slave and you will eventually be a slave.

Silver has dropped over 40% from its highs just before Bear Stearns went belly up while the average listed silver stock is down 51%. There are many silver stocks with just sparkling earnings reports including one that is growing over 40% and trading at less than three times earnings and very few people would be able to name that stock. Investors in today’s markets know only one thing: that a stock that they know by name only has broken some chart level that they consider means this company is automatically tossed on to their junk heap. Throw out your charts and step up to buy companies growing 20-60% that are absolute jewels. There are only two ways to invest in this market to avoid this constant smashing. Build a big position in physical gold and silver and if you do not want to arrange to store it do not trust the ETFs. Quality gold and silver stocks are a different investment than physical gold and silver but they provide some security most investors don’t appreciate. The metal investment is secure because it is still in the ground, especially if the drill results are high quality by reputable firms.

Look, many of the gold and silver bug sites are filled with some very strange insects. Assuring readers that the gold is safer because it is not being mined is total hogwash. Mines are NOTORIOUS for being uncertain. Politically as well as geologically uncertain. The ONLY way to deal with gold or silver is the third world method: you wear it and carry a gun. If you put it in a safe, you have to have a secure fortress to protect it. This means family members and big dogs you can trust. And it has to be hidden very, very carefully. Throughout history, the method used the most was to bury it in the ground. Then, when the holder is killed or dies, no one can find it and it is found thousands of years later by strangers. Oops.

We have to be reasonable: if the three goddesses who rule our fates are determined to zero down wealth, they will. No matter what we do. We can survive not by hoarding anything or doing something strange. Oddly enough, the best route is the Libra one: build a strong family, take care of the family. Join with neighbors in group projects. Keep a wary eye on the weather and on the schemes of rivals. And stay out of debt as much as possible. This means living within one's means. This also means finding new ways to be capitalists.

It took seven years, but Charles Ulrich did something many people dream about, but few succeed at: He beat the IRS in a tax dispute. Not only that, but tax experts say potentially millions of other taxpayers could benefit from his victory. The accountant from Baxter, Minn., challenged the method the IRS has used for more than 20 years to tax shares and cash distributed by mutual life insurance firms to their policyholders when they reorganize as public companies.

A federal court recently agreed with his interpretation.

Good for Mr. Ulrich. This is how we fight back. Taxes are a complicated mess. Every time they are simplified, they are made complex very rapidly as a hoard of lobbyists go to work. And the politicians create more and more tax loopholes. We hold shares in a mutual fund life insurance business. And yes, they go private so the executives can line their own pockets. Generally, these deals make little or negative sense for the share holders. Who are bullied around by the executives who are really executioners seeking to slay the golden goose so they can grab an egg.

CF Industries (nyse: CF - news - people ) is in the headlines, as news breaks that the company is going to be added to the S&P 500 list after the close of trading on a date yet to be announced. We have highlighted the company in the past as one of the leading ways to play the fertilizer boom.

CF Industries had been a solid performer up until early August. We removed the shares from our "recommended" list on Aug. 8, at the $140 level. The stock is currently trading at the $145 level, but our concern is that momentum investors have dominated trading in the agriculture/fertilizer names.

Like at the beginning of the Great Depression, transportation of goods is collapsing. Just like housing. This is a bad sign. Flooding the US with Mexican trucks won't fix this. It will drive down prices even more and cause even more fury in the hinterlands. And both parties will exploit this rage if they can. Except they don't dare do the Hitler thing. Which means someone will come out of the dark and do it.

Home prices fell a record annual 15.9 percent in June, but the monthly rate of decline slowed from May which suggested the decimated housing sector may be stabilizing, according to Standard & Poor's on Tuesday.

"While there is no national turnaround in residential real estate prices, it is possible that we are seeing some regions struggling to come back, which has resulted in some moderation in price declines at the national level," said David Blitzer, chairman of the index committee at S&P, in a statement.

The S&P/Case-Shiller composite index of 20 metropolitan areas slipped 0.5 percent in June from May, bringing the measure down 15.9 percent from June 2007.

The month-over-month drop in the 20-city index was the smallest since July 2007.

The good news? They really think prices are nearly done dropping and will take off if only someone drops the interest rate to 1% again. This is too sad.

The largest single-workplace immigration raid in U.S. history has caused panic among Hispanic families in this small southern Mississippi town, where federal agents rounded up nearly 600 plant workers suspected of being in the country illegally.

One worker caught in Monday's sweep at the Howard Industries transformer plant said fellow workers applauded as immigrants were taken into custody. Federal officials said a tip from a union member prompted them to start investigating several years ago.
*snip*
Those detained were from Brazil, El Salvador, Germany, Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico, Panama, and Peru, said Barbara Gonzalez, an ICE spokeswoman.

From housing to trucking, in nearly every factory, insidiously, illegal workers poured in and drove down wages. If this wasn't happening, even more manufacturing would have moved offshore. This is why I push relentlessly for tariffs and barriers! Geeze! The ruling elites loved this flood of semi-slaves. These people were outside the system and therefore, easier to exploit. They never complained. They didn't hang around to become annoying retirees demanding services. They can't vote! As the ICE goes from factory to farm, the numbers of these people is most astonishing. It should have never been allowed and the US was quite capable of preventing this. But refused because this was a major component of the 'stop inflation' business. Cutting wages is the #1 way of stopping inflation. It is also the best way to make a depression.

If no one takes charge of this mess, we will definitely see some vicious person going about the poorer parts of the US, raising cain. And it is now nearly inevitable. Someone waving a gun and yelling, 'Let's go get them!' will be immensely popular if we go into a depression. Inspiring ethnic warfare will be all the rage. The liberals agitating for Tibet to be 'free' should look more closely at what they are advocating. For this is logically, support for ethnic warfare. And even more so: Jewish support for Israel, one of the more vicious ethnic cleansing states on earth.

(Bloomberg) -- Japanese companies are increasing overseas acquisitions, using their cash-hoards to snap up assets beaten down by the global credit crisis and economic slowdown.

The value of foreign purchases by Japanese companies this year has already topped 2007's total by 91 percent, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. That's the biggest gain among the world's 10 largest markets and contrasts with fewer deals in the U.S. and U.K., where credit is drying up after the subprime rout.

I have hammered away at this topic for several years. Japan has NOT been in a depression at all. Japan's workers are being repressed. This is different from a depression. Depressions hit banks, businesses, etc. Japan's businesses at the top are roaring ahead. They had more growth this last 8 years than in their entire history. Japan is a RIVAL. And is working on her own behalf as all rivals are prone to do. Instead of reacting to this, the US has rolled over, dead. We cannot be allowed to understand this. Israel's economy is growing like gangbusters. And so has Japan's export markets. Both have huge surpluses with the US. Both use the US for their own ends. Both are buying out the US. And both are 'untouchable'. As we go broke, they come in with checkbooks and buy us out. This is NOT A GOOD THING. IT HAS TO BE STOPPED.

Again, any patriotic person who can rise up and get the masses agitated will be an unstoppable force. The idea that we should be looking after America is one most people find nearly impossible to conceive. Anyone who does is called a 'xenophobe' and told to shut up. This business is very strongly connected to racism, ethnic cleansing and other ugly forces...but then look at Israel and Japan! Both have extraordinary immigration hurdles. Only people who are specifically of one ethnic/religious affiliation BY BLOOD are allowed to gain citizenship in either racist state. Both are very firmly attached to the US. Which is a multi-ethnic/religious state in grave danger of collapse. The US cannot sit idle while these nations move in to secure our mutual wealth systems. Any more than we should be idle when rival empires throw a net of debts over us.

The people in our government who are enabling and allowing this are traitors. The media that lies about this, ditto. This is why we have this very strange and unpleasant election. People praying to be saved while not being saved at all. Otherwise, we would be hearing talk about illegal immigrants undermining US workers or the debt load held by foreign rivals.

The cash offer of 1,250 pence a share is 61.9 percent more than Imperial Energy's stock price on July 11, the day before the London-based company said it received a bid, according to a statement distributed by Regulatory News Service. China Petroleum & Chemical Corp. indicated today it may bid for Imperial Energy.

India and China are busy buying up commodity distribution systems. The dead British Empire is holding a fire sale. There isn't much left. Most industry has been already sold or removed. We are on the same trajectory.

(Bloomberg) -- Carteret Mortgage Corp., a closely held mortgage broker that originated more than $4 billion in loans in 2006, plans to close in several weeks, said Chief Executive Officer Eric Weinstein.

``We ran out of money,'' Weinstein, 49, said in an interview today. ``We're not technically out of business yet, but we're winding it down and trying to do the best we can for everybody.''

More than 100 lenders have halted loans, closed or sold themselves over the past 18 months amid the worst housing market since the Great Depression. Weinstein said the Centreville, Virginia-based company has about 800 employees, including 40 at headquarters.

In 1930, there were still quite a few functional banks. Most people thought, the downturn was pretty much over. Hoover worked hard to stimulate the economy. So did the Fed, actually. But the global economy was collapsing due to this being the only way to cope with the massive WWI debts and reparations. Until this destruction of these debts was done, no one could do any business, really. It kept getting worse and worse each year. The US has taken on similar debts to pay for the Cold War. We are reacting to the collapse of our banking system by trying to restart the Cold War. I guess the thinking is, our trade rivals would then be scared into funding our wild spending. I fear, they are unable to do this or in the case of Japan, are openly hostile and using this as an opportunity to destroy the US economy and enslave the US public.

Gloomier than any other nation at present is Great Britain. Few bullish items appear any more in its financial papers; article after article tells of mysteriously shrunken profits, disgruntled shareholders, deep depression. Last week, although imports of gold from Brazil balanced the steady drain of British gold by France, Britain turned more bearish. Unemployment, steadily rising throughout Europe, passed the 2,000,000 mark in Great Britain last week, the worst since 1921. Further increase seemed certain.

A new Nadir of outspoken pessimism was reached in a trade forecast issued last week by the British Electrical Manufacturers' Association. This potent group went on record as predicting the present trade depression will almost surely last through 1931, that any recovery in 1932 will be only temporary. The U. S.. said this forecast, will take longer to recover than in 1921, being retarded by too large a production capacity, overcapitalization of earning assets.

President Hoover last week took up the kind of national problem with which he knows best how to deal. A drought,* worst since the Civil war, was upon the east and midwest (see p. 15). Husbandmen across a checkerboard of devastation faced immense crop and livestock losses. President Hoover could not bring rain, but he could and did organize relief agencies

¶To President Hoover last week was sent a report by Commissioner of Indian Affairs Charles J. Rhoads on his Bureau's program "to make the Indian a self-sustaining, self-respecting American citizen." The Indian Bureau will "discourage the proclivity of the average Indian to participate in circuses, rodeos, Wild West shows and similar enterprises."

Last week B. & O. announced that, acting through the great railroad house of Kuhn, Loeb & Co., it had acquired control of C. & A. The total cost to B. & O. was estimated at $21,500,000 against the I. C. C.'s 1928 valuation of C. & A. at $75,000,000.
The deal was done entirely through the purchase of bonds, which carry voting control. Puzzling in the case was unusual strength in C. & A. stock issues early last week with both the common and preferred selling at 7¼, before dropping to 3⅞ (common) and 3 (preferred). Even the wary New York Times said flatly: "There will be nothing left for stockholders."

Widely quoted as a bearish argument have been recent wagecuts by such large companies as Chrysler Corp. and National Cash Register Co. (10% each last month). Last week Roy Dickinson, alert associate editor of Printers' Ink (22,645 circulation, advertising trade weekly) telegraphed a list of tycoons to learn what future wage reductions may be in store. Some of the replies which he received:

James A. Farrell, president of the United States Steel Corp. (224,980 employes in 1929): "I heard a steel man say the other day, in fact more than one recently, that wages should come down. I said, 'Oh no, wages in the steel industry are not coming down; you can make up your mind to that fact. If you are going out to sell your goods and eliminate your profit and expect to get it out of the men in the mills you are greatly mistaken.' "

George Francis Johnson, president of Endicott Johnson Corp. (shoes, 17,000 employes): "Reduction of income of labor is not a remedy for business depression; it is a direct and contributing cause."

Richard S. Shainwald, president of Paraffine Companies, Inc.: "The Paraffine Companies, Inc. has made no reductions in personnel . . . nor has it made any wage cuts . . . believes such reductions can be and should be avoided."

Chesley Robert Palmer, president of Cluett, Peabody & Co. Inc. (5200 employes) : "A general reduction of wages and salaries at this time is entirely unwarranted."

Walter A. Sheaffer, president of W. A. Sheaffer Pen Co.: "Believe it would be a serious mistake."

Albert Russel Erskine, president of Studebaker Corp.: "Have not even considered reducing wages or salaries."

Charles Ruffin Hook, vice president of American Rolling Mill Co.: "Wage reductions would, in our opinion, retard and not stimulate business."
Albert C. Loring, president of Pillsbury Flour Mills Co.: "We have not contemplated any reduction in wages. . ."

Oh, god. Look at that! This last 8 years, all the media has trumpeted the collapse in wages as a GOOD thing. Our grandfathers knew better. All of the top employers were very anxious, one year after the Black Tuesday to reassure everyone, they are not going to depress wages and thus, deepen depression. Everyone whose wages dropped found themselves unable to pay for things and this made things worse. Well, today, the Fed and our government, our media, EVERYONE in power celebrates cutting wages! 'Inflation is DOWN!' they shout. Well, depression has been spreading like wildfire thanks to this process.

For the U. S. farm situation never looked less happy than it did last week when Chairman Alexander Legge of the Federal Farm Board returned to Washington from a swing through the suntanned wheat belt (TIME, July 21). Chairman Legge had harangued planters on the economic necessity of reducing wheat acreage to eliminate their surplus. Their retort, through their Governors and Senators, was a demand for the farm board to buy more wheat and more and more until the surplus vanished and the price went up from 60¢ per bu. Already staggering under more wheat than the whole state of Nebraska produces in a year. Chairman Legge had flatly refused.

"Bunk." When he got back last week to his large Washington office on the seventh floor of the old Southern Railway Building one block from his room at the Willard Hotel, Chairman Legge summoned newsmen and told them what he thought. Said he:

"The farm board was created to assist the farmer and not for politics. From now until November politicians will be so busy saving the farmer, it might be just as well to take a vacation. . . . "I notice the Democratic National Committee has adopted as a slogan 'the failure of the farm board.' This seems to be copied almost word for word from the grain dealers and the Chamber of Commerce of the United States,. . . .

"Certain interests [he meant the grain brokers] which seem to feel they have a God-given right to handle the products of the farmers, and who have accumulated immense fortunes in doing so ... doubtless will be easy picking for any politician of any party who is willing to play their game.

"However, farmers as a class . . . seem to be aware that their present unhappy condition is a result of long years of unregulated production, while they listened to gigantic schemes that high-powered statesmen have had to offer.
*snip*
Legge declares: "We've no authority to give anything away, to China or any other country. . . . I've discussed these proposals with President Hoover but no solution has been found.'' Others have suggested that wheat be fed to cattle since it is now cheaper than some other feeds. Mr. Legge rejects that scheme as unfair to the raisers of other feeds.

History runs in cycles. This is increasingly painfully obvious. Or rather, history is a spiral since we can't go back in time, we can follow the same trajectories. But we make a new path, doing this. Gravity is at work here.

The US militarized police state is in full flower. I remember how it was assembled. The US rulers are very strict about controlling pesky crowds. The only time they can't do this is when there are UNPLANNED reactions which we call 'riots.' I have lived through these in the past. Right on the heels of the US/NATO imperialists screeching like crazy about China not allowing separatists agitating at the Olympics, we have the media mostly ignoring the small handful of demonstrators who braved the massive suppressionary forces arrayed at Denver. Meanwhile, in the real world, the US condemns separatism in the Caucasus mountains. This is high lunacy!

U.S. Rep. Dennis Kucinich of Ohio brought the Democratic National Convention crowd to its feet today as he accused the Bush administration of losing track of the economy while focusing on the war in Iraq.

"Wake up America. The insurance companies took over health care," he said. "Wake up America. We went into Iraq for oil!"

Kucinich blamed the war in Iraq for "millions of Americans" losing their homes and jobs.

"Up with peace! Up with prosperity! Up with the Democratic Party! Up with Obama!," he shouted, pumping his arms. "Wake up America!"

His speech was the liveliest of the evening so far, causing delegates to jump out of their seats, wave their arms in the air and shout for the first time tonight.

Sigh. I remember the sixties. I was very, very active back then. I was at many conventions, demonstrations, riots, political action committees, I made many leaflets, banners, wrote newspaper stories, did cartoons, did tons of things no one wanted me to do. I talked about the CIA and how our nation was a nation haunted by spooks every bit as dangerous as the spooks in Russia and China. Frankly, most people didn't believe me when I talked about the way the CIA operates. Yet every time I had to face down the Secret Service, the FBI or the local police, they always ended up going away instead of beating me to death.

Well, now they would beat me to death, I guess. My father's influence is fading as he ages. But I suppose we have to forge ahead. This is because everything about politics today bugs the hell out of me. People wanting to understand 'conspiracies' annoy me because they can't figure out how they have been manipulated by DARPA's think tankers and their ability to toss off all sorts of goofy ideas. These are launched like scud missiles into the internet to see which attracts the most devotion from anxious readers seeking 'the hidden truth!' Rats. It works, alas.

Then there are 'reasonable people' who accept the propaganda pictures put into action by the media owners. The media owners work very closely with the CIA and the government. They are hardly much better or different than the crews that ran Pravda under communism. Most Americans live in this duck soup reality. They thrash about with the noodles and vegetable bits and try desperately to have a point of view. Only they are viewing a brick wall. And they have a choice: if they get out of this frying pan, they end up in the fire. And being able to see the world through sane eyes is nearly impossible.

Let's examine Kucinich's speech: he was allowed on the podium if he gave the 'right' speech. So he obliged. He didn't warn everyone that the DNC is the Police State. Nope. He didn't mention the suppression of dissent outside. He didn't compare Denver with Beijing. Nope. He said 'millions of Americans' are losing their homes and jobs because of the Iraq war????? WHAT THE HELL???? This is utterly senseless and obvious pandering. The US military/industrial complex is 85% of our manufacturing base these days! And has nothing to do with our housing bubble. Our housing bubble came about because Bush and Cheney couldn't go to war without bringing Santa Claus down the damn chimney.

This Federal Reserve Santa came with a huge bag of goodies. The US public LOVED this. True, the war caused oil prices to soar. But this was only 50% of the hike in oil prices. The other 50% was due to US over consumption coupled with excessive import consumption. The US trade deficit soared during the war years. But this was soaring, anyway. The US public can't all live in unaffordable McMansions. Nor can everyone get huge ATM loans from their little shacks, hovels or dumps. This bonanza of easy lending was the tail end of easy lending for US militarist actions on behalf of all the leeches who are our allies in Europe and Asia and a singular, very difficult little Middle Eastern country that tries very hard to never, never be examined or be in the news except with happy stories about happy US dual citizens settling in and making the desert bloom. After killing the natives.

Bush sent the economy off the tracks with the pre-9/11 tax cuts. These were popular. Then, after 9/11, all the war spending created massive jobs at home and abroad. This was extremely popular. The push for war was popular with our media and many a foolish American citizen. And when the illegal and ill-advised invasion happened, I was accosted by a number of people waving their arms, yelling, 'You are WRONG, Elaine! We will win and have CHEAP GAS.' I then explained that gas would not be cheaper but the opposite. This was because the oil was a bonus but not the point. The invasion was on behalf of US hegemony there. Saddam gave lots and lots of support and money to the Palestinians who were fighting the Jewish invaders. This ceased once we destroyed Iraq.

This scheme of ours is now up in flames as the invasion radicalized Islam to an amazing degree. The ancient battle between the Shi'a and the Sunni flared up again. But it didn't help us. It simply made the fires hotter. And they are burning merrily right where the majority of the world's oil reserves lie. This has certainly driven up the price of oil. The issue of Palestine will NOT be mentioned by ANYONE at the Democratic imperial crowning. Nor will the GOP talk about this. AIPAC's representatives are hard at work, behind the curtain, to insure this.

Note that Kucinich isn't demanding the DNC back off of Iran. I know that he wouldn't attack Iran. But he knows better than to talk about the VERBOTEN stuff when the real string pullers are out in full force.

Here is a picture from China, showing how even the smallest demonstrations are crushed....WAIT!!!! This is DENVER!!!! Oops.

American News Project: A calm political protest quickly turned chaotic as anxious Denver police surrounded protestors peacefully marching toward the Democratic National Convention Center. After trapping the crowd between two buildings, hundreds of officers used pepper spray, batons and unwarranted aggression. After being surrounded for 20 minutes, two ANP producers managed to escape after recording the whole affair.

A group of 75-100 anti-abortion protesters plopped down on Speer Boulevard by Market outside the Pepsi Center at about 2 p.m. and are facing arrest.

Members of the group, who had promised in emails that they would do something to guarantee their arrest, appeared to be getting their wish as police arrived.

Traffic has been briefly disrupted.

There is no real 'fire in the belly' in these demonstrations. These are desperate attempts to have the semblance of 'in the street' democracy. But people are in a 'wait and see' mood right now. The chess pieces on the planetary board are rapidly moving. The US and Russia take each other's pawns and are pawning our future. The Chinese are done with proving all the anti-Chinese whiners who complained about nearly everything in this Olympics to be a bunch of ninnies. Now, China is giving our finances a very hard eyeball glare. And is snarling that we better pay our debts or else. And Russia is shoving us around while we lumber about with NATO and shove back. I keep saying, Europe has learned absolutely nothing from history. Nothing at all.

Anyone with a brain knows that 'shove Russia' and 'sneak attack Russia' always ends with Russians destroying everything in their path in return. And they can utterly annihilate Europe. Europe's fear is great. But the solution is to have the US fight off Russia. I suppose the deep plan is for Russia and America to destroy each other while the Europeans stand on the sidelines after the usual sneak attacks. Then they can pick up all the pieces and take over Russian resources a la Hitler.

This is STUPID. I bet most Europeans don't even mention this. They dare not think it, either. No, they are protecting themselves. But if Russia were vaporized, all the easier. Ech. Alas, Russia feels the same. They know that it will take only a few dozen MIRVs to blast most of Europe to eternity. When I was a child, I learned to treat rattlers with great care. If you poke at them with a stick, they fling themselves out of their coiled up position and fly through the air, jaws gaping wide, poison dripping. Only after they have extended themselves, can you pin the head down with a long stick. And lord help you, if you goof and nail too far down the slippery body! Running like hell is the best solution. Even shooting them: they don't die right away. And thrashing around, are still very dangerous. So I hope Europeans think about this more carefully.

Members of CodePINK, an organization opposed to the Iraq war, held aloft an effigy of civil-rights icon Rosa Parks as they marched along West Colfax Avenue today.
Members of the group sang "We shall not be moved," an anthem of the civil-rights movement, and chanted as they paraded on the second day of the Democratic National Convention.

The group wants Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama to pledge to end the occupation of Iraq, said Renay Davis, 58, a Code Pink member from San Francisco.

"At this point, I will vote for him. He is our last hope for change, but the road to change begins with peace," she said.

I knew Dr. Spock. When he ran for President, I assisted him. It was rather amusing. He couldn't win anything, of course. But we did this in order to push the Democrats in the right direction. For LBJ was the one who upped the ante with the war! It is too late for anyone to think the DNC will 'bring peace' since the Democratic party leaders have all sworn to AIPAC, they will bring us wars and more wars. They were most emphatic about this and work ceaselessly to drive this particular nail home. They are openly egging on a war with Iran. And Iran will make Iraq look easy. We are losing many wars and our rulers don't care. They know that if we tie down Islamic nations, they can't rescue the Palestinians. And the entire US foreign policy direction is to increase the size and power of Israel even if this kills US power.

I better warn Europe, this means they come second. Maybe Europe and the US hope Israel will nuke Russia for us? Who knows. The Apocalypse will be very ugly. No oil reserves or religious centers will exist at the end of it. Antiwar demonstrators have to take this devil by the horns! If we think we can have peace while Palestine is ripped to pieces, this is insane. There will be no peace. And many antiwar people are pro-Tibet, pro-Darfur. They honestly believe that all nations should be ripped to shreds along all sorts of ethnic/religious configurations. The world then can have a million small countries that hate each other. This will sort of like being alive in the Dark Ages.

Russia on Tuesday recognized the independence of two enclaves that have long sought to secede from neighboring Georgia. The action deepened strains with the West over the conflict in the economically vital crossroads of the Caucasus and roiled a broader debate over how to respond to separatist movements around the world.

The Russian decision was intended to consolidate its political and military gains in the two and a half weeks since it invaded Georgia after hostilities flared over the breakaway territory of South Ossetia, an ally of Moscow.

The Russian president, Dmitri A. Medvedev, declared in a nationally televised address that South Ossetia and the other pro-Russian enclave, Abkhazia, would never again have to endure what he described as oppressive Georgian rule.

“This is not an easy choice, but it is the only way to save the lives of people,” Mr. Medvedev said.

With Russia’s image and financial markets suffering in recent days, Mr. Medvedev took the unusual step of giving a series of interviews to foreign media on Tuesday to explain the move. He said Russia had abided by international law in recognizing the two enclaves, but he left no doubt that the decision was in part retaliation for the West’s support earlier this year for the independence of Kosovo from Serbia, which Russia had opposed.

Like England in 1933, the US merrily tootles about the planet with its extremely expensive naval forces. They sail in and out of ports. While on the ground, all the knives of those who hate the British empire are sharpened. Whenever there is a true confrontation, England lost. Ditto, the US. We win ONLY if the UN disarms those we wish to terrorize. This is still nearly impossible for us! We bind up our victims and they still bite our nose off while we waterboard them.

When the European right wing governments gave Kosovo nation status, they thought this pop on Russia's nose would tame Russia. Instead, it enraged Russia. So did they stop? No! The sneak attack on Russian soldiers was next on the agenda. And this will end as it always ends: Berlin filled with Russians. Paris filled with Cossacks. Where is Napoleon? Can any of the weaklings running the EU find some suitable military hero to turn them into a Grand Armee? I just got the entire 'War and Peace' movie made in Russia. It is a must-watch.

Here is the German language version of this great movie:

Up until that battle, no European leader was able to keep fighting to resist the Grande Armee. Even though the French won this battle, the Russians simply pulled back and then returned, with a vengeance. An unstoppable force. So I would imagine, European people should be out in the streets, demanding this new Cold War cease? Well, not.

They too, are waiting to see if Obama can pull a rabbit and not a nuclear skunk out of his hat.

Prime Minister Nouri al Maliki said Monday there would be no security agreement between the United States and Iraq without an unconditional timetable for withdrawal— a direct challenge to the Bush administration, which insists that the timing for troop departure would be based on conditions on the ground.
*snip*
Maliki said that the United States and Iraq had agreed that all foreign troops would be off Iraqi soil by the end of 2011. "There is an agreement actually reached, reached between the two parties on a fixed date, which is the end of 2011, to end any foreign presence on Iraqi soil," Maliki said.

But the White House disputed Maliki's statement and made clear the two countries are still at odds over the terms of a U.S. withdrawal.

"Any decisions on troops will be based on conditions on the ground in Iraq ," White House spokesman Tony Fratto said in Crawford, Tex. , where President Bush is vacationing. "That has always been our position. It continues to be our position."

Maliki gives a chance to get our leg out of the Iraq bear trap. Only Bush and our other rulers WANT us there. To keep the Shi'ites in our grip. We know that the day we get kicked out, Iraq and Iran will be on the same page, reading the same script. Romeo and Juliette. Well, we want both dead as that pair of lovers. This pretty much wipes out any talk about 'ending the war' since the Shi'a are ending it. No matter what we do. I suppose we could have another two or three thousand soldiers die or go insane? Seems OK with our rulers. But it isn't OK with me. Moving our soldiers to Afghanistan isn't a hot idea, either. We hope a second surge will save our Reich.

Western special forces are poised to increase their clandestine military operations in Pakistan to stop the flood of Taliban fighters pouring into Afghanistan, amid concerns that the militants are "winning the war".

As fears grow that the Taliban's strength has been underestimated and not enough is being done to stop militants crossing Afghanistan's porous border, Western forces are considering taking the controversial step of carrying out more missions in Pakistan.

In recent weeks, increased attacks by Taliban fighters on Western and Afghan targets, including the killing of 10 French soldiers and the attempted storming of an American base, have been linked by Nato officials to peace deals struck between the militants and Pakistan's government and an unwillingness in some parts of the Islamabad establishment to |confront extremists.

Gads. A FLOOD of Taliban are pouring into Afghanistan? And we are the Great White Whale, thrashing about the place, killing everyone. And they move back while we kill our allies. Then come in with more harpoons! This is why the Great White Whale ends up dead! This is how our distant ancestors killed mastodons. Those giant, shaggy elephants had huge tusks! And our ancestors killed cave bears, too. Using stone weapons.

The US ruling class prides itself on luring Russia into Afghanistan. Then using the CIA to pay bin Laden to fight the Russians. And paying the Taliban to fight the Russians! And have we learned a thing since then? Perish the thought. So back to the conventions! I'm certain, the Chinese are watching with grim amusement.